You're depending on some implementation specific markup that won't necessarily exist for every client. The XML format (svn log --xml {url}) is a bit more standard if you want to parse it with tools (or you might consider using SVN::Client)

Good point, that's true, but parsing XML properly is more of a full script than this. Once I've gone that far I'd want to include more features... beyond the intended scope of this solution. I have no problem with the fact that this method is limited to clients that produce output in this particular format.

That's because you are reading from @ARGV after the <> operator (generated by -n) is. Try something like...

Great, that's what I needed to know. :) I like the use of -l for the cleaner split and print as well.