Concerning matching within a file: does this help? 
open(FILE, "your.log");
# read each line from the file
while ($line = <FILE>) {
  if ($line =~ m/the pattern you're looking for/) {
     # do something with the matched line
  }
}

[download]

If that's not what you meant and is something you already know, please clarify.

As for handling time ranges, there's a number of existing nodes here that can give you some help; the search box and Super Search are a monk's best friends. In particular, check out the responses to Within A Date Time Range.

-- Frag.

In reply to Re: pattern match or key problem by frag
in thread pattern match or key problem by brassmon_k

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