sorry for the bad formatting. its my first time to use this. i was thinking more of somethingl ike this:

$regex = qr/--/

if($thestring =~ $regex || $thestring !~ $regex)
{
   unshift(@match, $thestring);
}
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but the problem is the logfile is a bit dynamic and i dont know what errors i am going to get. i just know that "--" usually indicates an error but not all lines with "--" means that they are really errors. so in this sample log file:

081407 start up server
081407 -- fatal error in procedure 1
081407 -- disconnected user
081407 -- logging started
081407 -- not enough space
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i just want to get

081407 -- fatal error in procedure 1
081407 -- not enough space
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and disregard the rest like:

081407 -- disconnected user
081407 -- logging started
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is there a way i can use it in qr// function? i guess something like this:

1. get all occurrences of "--".
2. in those occurrences of "--" ignore those that have "logging" and "
+disconnected"

could it be place in a qr// function like:

qr/-- || ~! logging,disconnected/ (wrong syntax of course)

something like an ignore list.
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hope thats clearer