my $parse_log_entry = qr/^$dateRegex/ms;
...
my $prevpos = 0;
while( $logfile =~ m/$parse_log_entry/g ) {
	$count++;                   # count number of parsed strings
	if ($prevpos) {
#	    print "Do something with $prevpos .. $-[0]\n";
#	    print substr($logfile, $prevpos, $-[0]-$prevpos), "\n";
	}
	$prevpos = $-[0];
}