The command cvs log filename has output that looks as follows:

RCS file: /usr/local/cvs/scripts/myFile.pl,v
Working file: myFile.pl
head: 1.4
branch:
locks: strict
access list:
symbolic names:
keyword substitution: kv
total revisions: 4;    selected revisions: 4
description:
----------------------------
revision 1.4
date: 2001/08/02 21:28:39;  author: alw9;  state: Exp;  lines: +1 -1
some comment here
----------------------------
revision 1.3
date: 2001/07/30 04:15:00;  author: alw9;  state: Exp;  lines: +2 -0
another comment
----------------------------
revision 1.2
date: 2001/07/25 18:01:05;  author: alw9;  state: Exp;  lines: +1 -1
cvs comments go here
----------------------------
revision 1.1
date: 2001/07/25 17:38:17;  author: jms18;  state: Exp;
put this in the cvs repository
and comment the cvs
======================================================================
+=======
[download]

To parse this and grab say the date, author, and revision, I use two single line regexes as follows:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Cwd;

my($ver, $date, $coder);

my $currentDir = cwd(); # remember starting dir

# change into temp working area
chdir "/tmp" or die "Could not change to /tmp because: $!\n";

# grab the cvs project from the repository
`cvs co scripts`;

#hop into the temp dir
chdir "./scripts" or die "Could not change to /tmp because: $!\n";

# run 'cvs log' against file and grab the output
my @output = `cvs log myFile.pl`;

for(@output)
{
    next if 1..11;    # skip first eleven lines of output

    $ver = $1 if(/^revision\s(\d+\.\d+)$/);
    
    $date = $1, $coder = $2 
            if(m!^date:\s(\d{4}/\d{2}/\d{2})\s[\d|:]+;\s+author:\s+(\w
++);!);
    
    # if we have everything we were looking for
    # print it out and undef the variables
    if( defined($ver) && defined($date) && defined($coder) )
    {
        print "ver = $ver\ndate = $date\ncoder = $coder\n\n";
        undef $ver;
        undef $date;
        undef $coder;
        next;
    }
    
} # end while

# change back to tmp dir and delete the project
chdir "/tmp" or die "Could not change to /tmp because: $!\n";
`rm -rf ./scripts`;

# return the user to his scheduled dir
chdir $currentDir or die "Could not change to $currentDir because: $!\
+n";
[download]

But, this felt bad to me. Don't get me wrong... it works just fine, but it felt ugly. I wanted one regex -- that felt cleaner.
So, I grabbed the /m modifier and went to work.

$ver = $1, $date = $2, $coder = $3
if(m!\Arevision\s(\d+\.\d+)$
    ^date:\s(\d{4}/\d{2}/\d{2})\s[\d|:]+;\s+author:\s+(\w+);
    [\w|\s|:|;|\d|\+|-]+\Z!mx);
[download]

But that gives me nothing. Obviously, I am using multi-line regex's completely wrong. I believe my problem lies in
greediness. Regex's are greedy and multi-line regex's must be really greedy. I don't know if I am not matching at all, or if
I am just slurping everything up or whatever.

I have the owl book in my left hand and the camel book in my right hand (which, makes it hard to type), and I am trying to get this working. Anyone care to give me some pointers?

Jeremy