"...He did ask for a learning exercise..."

Yes, but i didn't reply to the OP.

"...break the composite fields down..."

Yes, sure. Perhaps like this:

karls-mac-mini:monks karl$ perl -E ' say split /[\[\]]/, qq([22/Apr/20
+15:13:35:04 +1000])' 
22/Apr/2015:13:35:04 +1000

karls-mac-mini:monks karl$ perl -E ' say split /"/, qq("GET /bin/admin
+.pl HTTP/1.1")' 
GET /bin/admin.pl HTTP/1.1

karls-mac-mini:monks karl$ perl -E 'say join "\t", split /\s/, qq(GET 
+/bin/admin.pl HTTP/1.1)'
GET    /bin/admin.pl    HTTP/1.1
# usw...

[download]

I just wanted to show wrog that a solution that only uses split is possible.

Another question is this it is desirable if this is desirable. I guess some may call it abuse.

Edit: Better wording.

Best regards, Karl

«The Crux of the Biscuit is the Apostrophe»

In reply to Re^4: Question about the most efficient way to read Apache log files without All-In-One Modules from CPAN (personal learning exercise) by karlgoethebier
in thread Question about the most efficient way to read Apache log files without All-In-One Modules from CPAN (personal learning exercise) by lulz

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