Jul 17 10:26:30 host@our.domain.edu sendmail[8436]:
e2HERfF08329: to="a-marsh@ussr.net" <a-marsh@ussr.net>,
delay=00:00:49, xdelay=00:00:01, mailer=esmtp, pri=889271,
relay=mxpool01.netaddress.ussr.net. [204.68.24.19],
stat=250 2.0.0 Sent (Mail accepted (634ejqoAE1429M05))

This log line (and others like it, all have double quotes in the email address), does not behave as i think it should. $_ contains the log line when i execute the following statement: 

($to_addr = $_) =~ s/.* to=([^,]+), .*/$1/;

[download]
However, $to_addr does not end up containing the data following the 'to=' delimiter, it ends up containing the whole log line. It would seem that somehow the whole log line is getting matched by the ([^,]+) part of the regex because that's what's getting substituted back in.

What's even stranger is if i simulate this situation in the debugger (by entering the log line into a variable and performing the same substition) it works exactly as expected.

The log line has been altered for obvious reasons. It is of course on a single line in its original form.

And yes, I know you can't technically write a regex to match an email address, but this *should* be close enough.

Thanks.

In reply to Strange Behavior while Parsing Sendmail logs by Russ

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