Anything awk/grep can do perl can do better! You don't need to inefficiently call them externally, perl already has adopted their strengths. 

sub get_log_data {
    open my $logfile, '<', 'logfile' or die "open on logfile: $!";
    my @data_lines;
    while (<$logfile>) {
        next unless ( /fileid/ .. /^-{5}/ ); # range operator!
        if (/specificdata/) {
            push @data_lines, $_;
        }
    }
    close $logfile;
    die 'could not find specificdata in logfile' unless (@data_lines);
    return join q{}, @data_lines;
}

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Please try to enclose your code and error message in <c> and </c> tags in the future. Your error did not display right and the code is easier to read with these tags.

Update: fixed bug where only one line of specificdata matching would be returned, not multiple lines.

In reply to Re: usage of awk and grep together by juster
in thread usage of awk and grep together by raghu_shekar

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