I've cleaned up the code a lot, and merged it all into one file and no longer piping to prep.pl. The module HTML::SmallTemplate is just a simple little template engine I concocted for myself, but is off topic for this discussion. I also put the loading of the full document in a separate CGI to take a little load off this one. My template has a link to that cgi to go in a popup window.

#!/usr/bin/perl
$|++;
use strict;
use CGI;
use Data::Dumper;
use File::Find;
use Time::HiRes qw(gettimeofday);
use URI::Escape;

use HTML::SmallTemplate qw(readtemplate);
$HTML::SmallTemplate::BaseDir = './templates';

my $username = 'josh';

my $logpath = "/Users/$username/Library/Application Support/Adium 2.0/
+Users/Default/Logs/";

my $query = new CGI;
print $query->header;
my $keyword = $query->param('keyword');

my $data;

my $grepmatch = qr/($logpath(.+?)\.(.+?)\/(.+?)\/.+?\((\d{4})\|(\d{2})
+\|(\d{2})\)\.adiumLog):\((\d\d:\d\d:\d\d)\)\ (.+?):(.+)$/;
my @matches;

if ($keyword) {
        $$data{adiumLog}{keyword} = $keyword;
        $$data{results} = &search;
}

# load template
my $page = HTML::SmallTemplate->new(name => 'adiumLog', template => re
+adtemplate('adiumLog'), data => $data);
$page->parse;
print $page->output;

sub search
{
        my %msgs;
        my $lines;
        scan($logpath);
        my (@date,@time,@from,@to,@file,@snip,@id);
        for (
         map $_->[0]
         => sort { $a->[1] cmp $b->[1] }
         map [$_,"$$_[4]$$_[5]$$_[6]$$_[7]$$_[3]"]
         => @matches
        ) {
                my ($file,$prot,$me,$user,$y,$m,$d,$t,$from,$msg) = @{
+$_};
                my $snip = snippit($file,$keyword);
                $snip =~ s/$keyword/<span class='msg'>$keyword<\/span>
+/g;
                $snip =~ s/\n/<br>/gsm;
                my $id = join '',gettimeofday;

                push @date, "$y-$m-$d";
                push @time, $t;
                push @from, $me eq $from ? $me : $user;
                push @file, uri_escape($file);
                push @snip, $snip;
                push @id,   $id;
                push @to,   $me eq $from ? $user : $me;
        }
        return {
                date => [@date],
                time => [@time],
                from => [@from],
                file => [@file],
                snip => [@snip],
                id       => [@id],
                to       => [@to],
        };
}

sub snippit
{
        my ($file,$keyword,$in,@catch) = @_;
        open F, $file;
        my $match = qr/$keyword/;
        while (<F>) {
                push @catch,tell F;
                if ($_ =~ $match) {
                        $in=1;
                }
                $in++ if $in;
                if ($in == 4) {
                        last;
                } elsif (!$in && $#catch > 2) {
                        shift @catch;
                }
        }
        seek F,$catch[0],0;
        my $snip;
        read F,$snip,$catch[$#catch]-$catch[0],0;
        close F;
        $snip;
}

sub scan
{
        my @path = @_;
        my $regex = qr/$keyword/;

        find(
                sub {
                        return unless -T;
                        open my $fh, $File::Find::name;
                        domatch($fh, $File::Find::name,$regex);
                        close $fh;
                },
                @path
        );

}

sub domatch
{
    my $fh = shift;
    my $name = shift;
        my $regex = shift;

    while( <$fh> )
    {
        if ( /$regex/o ) {
                        push @matches, ["$name:$_" =~ /$grepmatch/o] a
+nd last;
        }
    }
}
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