#!/usr/bin/perl -w my $timestamp; my $line = "Fri May 29 18:29:57.357 2009 Morocco Standard Time INFO: pid 3216 tid 1724: 170: 132192: apricocot Native Server: recvd AA_BIN_MSG_VER_CHG"; if ($line =~ /^(.*) INFO: .* recvd AA_BIN_MSG_VER_CHG/) { $timestamp = $1; print $timestamp; }