Parsing log and sending email

cydamac has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have to first apologize if this has been answered in another thread, but I couldn't find it. I also need to preface my post by saying that I am NOT a programmer, so I may ask "stupid" questions. I have started Perl self-learning, but I need to get a couple of scripts up right now. This is what I need to do: Parse a Perforce log file (plain text) for specific words/text (e.g. btree corrupt), and send an email if such text is encountered. If it makes a difference, the log file is typically @100MB, and it resides on a remote server. Here is an example of the contents of the log:

Perforce server info:
    2007/06/20 23:37:18 pid 1116 completed .016s 
Perforce server info:
    2007/06/20 23:37:18 pid 1116 jmihalik@mstudio-guadalupe-build 10.0
+.44.165 [unknown/v56] 'user-fstat C:\builds\MStudio\Products\MStudioC
+ore\Dev\Guadalupe\Exports\VS2005\Tests\Integration\TestFiles\Output\V
+isaOutputTask.h'
Perforce server info:
    2007/06/20 23:37:18 pid 1116 completed .000s 
Perforce server info:
    2007/06/20 23:37:18 pid 1116 jmihalik@mstudio-guadalupe-build 10.0
+.44.165 [unknown/v56] 'user-reopen -t text+w C:\builds\MStudio\Produc
+ts\MStudioCore\Dev\Guadalupe\Exports\VS2005\Tests\Integration\TestFil
+es\Output\VisaOutputTask.h'
Perforce server info:
    2007/06/20 23:37:18 pid 1116 completed .000s
[download]

As I stated earlier, I am a noob, and I have done the super search, but the answers that I find assume that I am already a programmer. I appreciate any help that people can provide, and I especially appreciate people's patience as I learn.

Comment on Parsing log and sending email Download Code

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Re: Parsing log and sending email by GrandFather (Saint) on Jun 21, 2007 at 20:30 UTC
The "send an email" bit is simple: use MIME::Lite. There are plenty of samples in the docs that will get you going in short order. For the rest of it you need to do a little study. Take a stroll around the Tutorials section here and find out about Input and Output, although you may be better off starting with Getting Started with Perl. To find out if something has been answered in another thread you should use Super Search. For example a super search on log file turns up Extracting useful information from Windows Event Logs and Search a file with ids from another file which may help a little. Best thing is to write some code then run it by us for comment. We are generally much happier criticizing code for you than writing it in the first place. ;) DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel	[reply]
Re^2: Parsing log and sending email by cydamac (Initiate) on Jun 21, 2007 at 21:06 UTC
Thanks for the guidance and the start. I made some good progress today, but I am still having problems. I will probably be posting an update to my thread with my code, and the problems that I have. You did a good job of pointing my in a direction, which is more than I can say for the other response that I got. You are probably a very effective teacher.	[reply]
Re: Parsing log and sending email by Herkum (Parson) on Jun 21, 2007 at 19:38 UTC
If you have a specific problem that you need solved there are many people that would gladly help you... I think the question you are asking however has someone willing to do the work for you? That I can answer right away, no. I am pretty sure that you can find someone and pay them to do this if this an emergency but most people are not willing to do this a lot of work for you without a compelling reason.	[reply]
Re^2: Parsing log and sending email by cydamac (Initiate) on Jun 21, 2007 at 21:03 UTC
Thanks for the response. Just to clear things up, I wasn't trying to get ANYONE to do the work for me. I work with people who would gladly do the work for me. I, however, wanted to do my own discovery before turning to my co-workers. The problem that I ran into, is that I didn't really know what to look for, or what specifically to ask. I made great progress after posting this, so I will probably be posting something for review, over the next couple of days. I wasn't looking for a free ride, just some guidance.	[reply]
Re^3: Parsing log and sending email by Herkum (Parson) on Jun 22, 2007 at 10:53 UTC
Good luck, do not be afraid to post your work and questions about it; but you need to have done something before we can help you.	[reply]