Here is some bare bones code and a couple of subs from my toolbox. You may find these subs useful to generate unique filenames, and input scripts. You will also see a use of the -e $file syntax. -e checks for existance of a file -d for a dir, -s returns size, -M is days since last modification - see the perlop documentation c:\perl\html\index.html if you have Activestate perl. Look up the functions rename opendir readdir in perlfunc. Regular expression are in perlre. The FAQs are excellent and extensive. Tell us how you get on.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w  <--- this does nothing on win 32
use strict;
use warnings;
use diagnostics;
require 5.6.0;

# use / as the path delimiter perl will change it to \ for you
# if you use \ you will regret it as this is the escape char
# thus c:\thisdir is seen by perl as c:[tab]hisdir as \t is tab
my $path = 'c:/logfiles/';
my $file;

print "Processing...\n";

opendir(DIR,$path) or die "Unable to open dir $path: $!\n";
my @everything = readdir DIR;
closedir DIR;

foreach $file(@everything) {
    next if -d "$path$file"; # skip the directories
    next unless $file =~ m/\.log$/i; # look for files that end in .log
    print "Loading $path$file\n";
    # if you get to here you have a logfile so slurp it up
    my @file = &get_file("$path$file",1);
    
    # now have lines of file in @ file so iterate through them
  LINE:    for my $line(@file) {
        # look for whatever you are looking for
        # call the do stuff sub if you find a foobar
        if ($line =~ m/foobar/) {
            &do_stuff(@file);
            last LINE; # exit from this loop on $file
        }
    }
}

print "Done!\n";
exit;

sub do_stuff {

    my @file = @_;
    #do you stuff to $file here (the file is in @file if you want it)
    print "Doing stuff to $path$file\n";
    return;
}



# this sub makes a unique filename by adding numerals to the end of th
+e passed
# path/filename until it finds one that does not exist or dies after 1
+01 tries
# useage:   $my_unique_name = &make_unique_filename($filename);

sub make_unique_filename {

    my $filename = shift;
    no warnings;
    while (-e $filename) {
        $filename =~ s/^(.*?)(\d*)$/$1.eval(($2||0)+1)/e;
      die "Unable to make unique file $filename(0..100) after 101 trie
+s!\n" if $2 > 100;
    }
  return $filename;
}

# this sub inputs the script spceified by $path, and unless the $no_ba
+ckup 
# argument is set to true it writes and verifies a backup
# useage:  @file = &get_file($part,$no_backup);

sub get_file {

    # get arguments
    my $path = shift;
    my $no_backup = shift;

    # get script to process
    open (FILE, "<", "$path") or die "Unable to open file $path $!\n";
    my @file = <FILE>;
    close FILE;

    # we will write a backup unless this has been specifically outlawe
+d
    unless ($no_backup) {
        
        # make a uniquely named backup file
        $backup_file = "$path.bak";
        $backup_file = &make_unique_filename($backup_file) if -e $back
+up_file;
        
        # write script to script.bak before proceeding
        open (FILE, ">", $backup_file) or die "Unable to write backup 
+file $backup_file $!\n";
        for (@file) {
            print FILE $_;
        }
        close FILE;

        # varify backup is a perfect copy, rampant paranoia is OK beca
+use ..it happens
        open (BACKUP, "<", $backup_file) or die "Backup file failure, 
+aborting! $!\n";
        my @backup = <BACKUP>;
        close BACKUP;
        for my $i (0..$#backup) {
            die "Backup file corrupt, aborting!\n" unless $file[$i] eq
+ $backup[$i];
        }
        print "Backup of original script written to $backup_file\n";
    }
  return @file; # if all has proceeded as expected we return the scrip
+t
}
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