Ok, you can change my previous code to -

my ($activity, $machine, $requester) = /\|1\|(.*)\sfor\s(.*)\s\(reques
+ted by (.*)\)/;
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I have omitted the implicit $_ =~ part in the idiom. What the new code does is to look for the |1| pattern followed by the stuff you are looking for. Note that at this point, $_ holds the entire line.