I'm very new to Perl, learning as I go, but I've hit a roadblock and I'm not sure if the problem is with my logic or simple lack of experience in Perl--or both.

Basically, the script opens an error log, reads through each line looking for a specific error message, and then sends an email if the error message exists. That much I have working. But it gets complicated because the plan is to have the script run every X minutes to search for new error messages and ignore past messages.

What I wish to do is pull any error message that occurs on today's date and send an email describing the error. This wouldn't be a problem except that I don't want the script to pick up error messages that occured in the past (after the message was sent) and continue sending messages--the error log could possibly be reporting the same error several times a minute. Further, once the problem is resolved, I don't want the script to continue sending messages because it still sees today's date and the error text in the log file. But I do want it to continue searching for future errors every time it runs.

I've tried using Add_Delta_DHMS to only report errors that occured X minutes ago, but that does no good because what I need is it to look at the range of minutes in between as well.

Here's the code as the script currently exists:

open(PCC_ERR, "ErrLog.PCC") or die "Cannot open ErrLog.PCC";  #PCC_ERR
+ is the filehandle.  Opens error log

use Date::Calc(Today);  # needed for calculating 'friendly' dates
($year, $month, $day) = Today;

# Go through each line of the error log and only report if a line cont
+ains today's date and error codes 3022 or 3186

for $line (<PCC_ERR>) {
   if ($line =~ /$month-$day-$year/ && $line =~/3022|3186/) {

      use Net::SMTP; # If the condition is met, send an email with err
+or message

        $smtp = Net::SMTP->new('smtp.server'); # connect to an SMTP se
+rver
        $smtp->mail('email.address');     # use the sender's address h
+ere
        $smtp->to('recipient.address');        # recipient's address
        $smtp->data();                      # Start the email
        $smtp->datasend("To: recipient.address\n");
        $smtp->datasend("From: email.address\n");
        $smtp->datasend("\n");
        $smtp->datasend("Error Report for $month-$day-$year: Errors Fo
+und on Server!\n");
        $smtp->dataend();                   # Finish sending the mail
        $smtp->quit;                        # Close the SMTP connectio
+n

   last; # break loop if error found

}
}
close(PCC_ERR);
[download]

I'm hoping someone can help me with the logic if not the code, because I feel like I'm just missing something or making it harder than it is. Thanks!