Having been faced with solving a very similar problem not that long ago let me pass along one lesson that I learned: Create regexs using qq() and test each one one at a time.

Caveat:All the following code has not been tested

Looking at the examples you ahve provided here are a few thoughts. 

my $dtg=qq@\d+\-\d+\-\d+\s\d+:\d+:\d+@; # Date time group
my $logtype=qw@Local\d\.[Error|Critical]@; # Log type
my $ipaddr=qw@\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+@; # IP Address
my $odtg=qq@[A-Za-z]{3}\s\d+\s\d+\s\d+:\d+:\d+:@;
my $select=qq@%FW\-\d+\-\d+@; # FW or PIX? 
my $match_line=qq@$dtg\s+$logtype\s+$ipaddr\s+$otg\s+$select@;

[download]
Now you can take each of the regexs that make up the big regex and test them one at a time and see if they work.

Two other comments:

  1. Are you trying to match %PIX or %FW?
  2. What does next unless $1 !~ /$1/; mean in the logic of your code?

Peter L. Berghold -- Unix Professional
Peter at Berghold dot Net
   Dog trainer, dog agility exhibitor, brewer of fine Belgian style ales. Happiness is a warm, tired, contented dog curled up at your side and a good Belgian ale in your chalice.

In reply to Re: Tricky Syslog Parsing by blue_cowdawg
in thread Tricky Syslog Parsing by Dru

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