in reply to thoughts on tracking log file

A Super Search would likely turn up interesting stuff here for you. A key word in your search is 'Tail'. The search ?node_id=3989;BIT=log%20file%20tail;re=N;Wi (click the link) turns up File::Tail with top fill logs, Logging details to log file, Perl equivilant to tail -f, perlish way to 'tail -100 $logfile', File::Tail on win32 and Tailing/Streaming a Log File into Any Web Browser from Daemon among many others that may contain the answer you want (it's a little unclear from your question!).


DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel