I'm working on a script where I'm given a log file and need to print some of its info to an HTML file. One problem I'm having is that at the top of the HTML file, I need to print the start of the log date, which will be the earliest date found in the log. I believe I need to implement this in my while loop but I'm not sure how it will work. Here's my code: 

#! /usr/bin/perl
# CSC 310 Project # 4


#opening log and html file
open (LOG, '<', 'IN-access.log');
open (HTML, '>>', 'OUT-access.html');

#printing header/title/format of html
print HTML "<HTML><TITLE>Visitors Log</TITLE><BODY>\n";
print HTML "The log file start date is: date() <BR>\n";      <----HERE
+!!!
print HTML "There were 11 unique visitors in the logfile.<BR>\n";
print HTML "There were 2 visits yesterday<BR>\n";
print HTML "<TABLE border=1><TR><TD>IP</TD><TD>LOGFILE</TD></TR>\n";

#reading log file and assigning values
while ($lines = <LOG>){
    ($remoteIP,$rfc,$userID,$dateTime,$timeZone,$requestType,$fileRequ
+ested,$requestProtocol,$statusCode,$sizeOfFile) = split ' ', $lines;
        
    print HTML "<TR><TD>$remoteIP</TD><TD>$remoteIP $rfc $userID $date
+Time $timeZone $requestType $fileRequested $requestProtocol $statusCo
+de $sizeOfFile</TD></TR>\n";
}

[download]

Just for reference, here is an example of what is found in the log file

66.249.65.107 - - 08/Oct/2007:04:54:20 -0400 "GET /support.html HTTP/1.1" 200 11179

111.111.111.111 - - 05/Oct/2004:15:17:55 -0400 "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 10801

111.111.111.111 - - 06/Oct/2007:11:17:55 -0400 "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 3225

Do I need to convert the date somehow so I can compare them? Or can I tell perl to just check certain parts of the variable? All suggestions are welcome.

In reply to How to calculate earliest date from log file by jaffinito34

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