this ought to let you look at files of any size, and i think the output format is just what you wanted. 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $ext = '.log'; # extension to look for in filenames
my $pat = 'bob';  # adjust to value to search for
my $match;        # track how many matches

opendir(DH, '.') or die("CANT! $!");  # open directory
foreach my $diritem ( readdir(DH) ) { # read directory
    next unless ( -f $diritem &&      # is it a file?
        $diritem =~ m/$ext$/ );       # does it end in $ext?
    open(FH, '<', $diritem) or die("CANT! $!"); # open the file for re
+ading
    my @buffer;                       # buffer for previous lines
    push @buffer, scalar <FH> for 1 .. 3;       # create three line bu
+ffer
        while(<FH>) {                 # read the file line by line
            push @buffer, $_;         # add line to end of buffer
            shift @buffer;            # remove line from front of buff
+er
            if( /$pat/ ) {            # did i find the search pattern?
                $match++;             # increment my match count
                # print fancy output, with
                #   separator line,
                #   match counter, filename,
                #   two previous lines and matching line
                print "-----------------------------------------\n";
                print "($match) From file $diritem\n";
                print $buffer[0], $buffer[1], $buffer[2];
            } # if
        } # while
    close FH;                         # close the file
} # foreach

[download]
aah, that was a fun diversion! i searched for 'bob'. you might like to search for something more useful....

~Particle

In reply to Re: Newbie Text Parsing Question by particle
in thread Newbie Text Parsing Question by kanikilu

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