Maybe you can adapt something like this...

use warnings;
use strict;

my %log;

while (my $line = <DATA>){ 
    chomp  $line;
    next unless length $line;
    my ($event, $time) = split / at /, $line;
    push @{$log{$event}}, $time;
}

for my $key (keys %log){
    print $key, ${$log{$key}}[0] ? " at ${$log{$key}}[0]" : ''; 
    print "\nThe above event occurred ", $#{$log{$key}}, " additional 
+times.\n";
}


__DATA__
User logged in successfully at 10:35:33

User logged in successfully at 10:35:34

User logged in successfully at 10:35:35

Error: Login failure!

User logged in successfully at 10:35:37

Error: Login failure!

Error: System failure at 01:23:22

Error: System failure at 01:23:40

User logged in successfully at 10:35:39

Error: System failure at 01:23:41
[download]

Yields: (on my system, output order may vary.)

Error: Login failure!
The above event occurred 1 additional times.
Error: System failure at 01:23:22
The above event occurred 2 additional times.
User logged in successfully at 10:35:33
The above event occurred 4 additional times.

Thank you, that seems to be exactly what I needed

Hi, cspctec, and welcome to PerlMonks!

...what I've been trying to do is create a perl script to tell me how many times each error occurred.

Can you share this script? This may help with suggestions...

Can someone come up with an algorithm that can count these and output the results like I have listed?

Sounds like a hash--where the keys store the error--may serve your purpose.

Thank you for the reply

There is really no way for me to post my entire script as it is too long and on my unix box and it cannot be connected to the internet...

I will post some of the script here that I've been working on

my $count = 0;

$array_length = grep m/^.*\n/, @storage; #Storage array contains my fi
+le.. Use grep to get the number of sentences

for (my $i = 0; $i <= $array_length; $i++)
{
  my $x = 1;

  if ($storage[$i] eq $storage[$x])
  {
    $count++;
  }

  $x++;
}
[download]

That will return the number of matches of the first 12 sentences in the file... until it hits a line that is not like the first 12...

I do not know how to make it gather a count of all of the lines that are the same and return a count for each of them

Hi, gather a count of all of the lines that are the same
You may have to check each of the lines, because not all the lines are the same. e.g

User logged in successfully at 10:35:33
User logged in successfully at 10:35:34
User logged in successfully at 10:35:35
User logged in successfully at 10:35:37
[download]

The lines above are not the same, because of the changing time the user logged in.
If you tell me, I'll forget.
If you show me, I'll remember.
if you involve me, I'll understand.
--- Author unknown to me