I'm trying to understand the rationale behind your regex. Don't you want something more like 

my $parse_log_entry = qr/^($dateRegex.*?)(?=(?:^$dateRegex|\z))/ms;

[download]
? If so, then it I would process the file line-wise, and count only those lines that begin with your date pattern.

Or, if you need to do more than just counting, then something along the lines of 

my $current;
while ( <DATA> ) {
  if ( /^$dateRegex/ ) {
    process( $current ) if defined $current;
    $current = $_;
  }
  else {
    $current .= $_;
  }
}
process( $current ) if defined $current;

[download]

Update: Added the more extended second alternative.

Update 2: Fixed bug (last line of code was missing).

the lowliest monk

In reply to Re: Pimp My RegEx by tlm
in thread Pimp My RegEx by heathen

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.