Sorry, that was a cut-and-paste carelessness by me. I realize that it has a strange connection to my point of the regex being wrong. I am (and was) aware that they are not part of the real file.

Okay.. This is my final code and its working the way I want it to..but can it be further optimised? Can it be shortened??

my $dt = 'Wed Mar 10 10:10:48 IST 2010';
my (@dtar) = split /[ :]/, $dt;

$valar = 'Fri_Jan_29_14:30:22_v09.11-e024_1  Mon_Nov_30_09:20:08_v09.1
+1-e006_1  Tue_Dec_22_14:30:07_v09.11-e015_1  Tue_Nov_24_18:45:00_v08.
+13-s001_1
Mon_Dec_07_14:30:09_v09.11-e013_1 Thu_Dec_03_14:30:10_v09.11-e010_1 Tu
+e_Feb_02_14:30:06_v09.11-e026_1
Wed_Dec_02_09:20:09_v09.11-e008_1 Mon_Jan_04_14:30:06_v09.11-e017_1  T
+hu_Dec_10_14:30:11_v09.11-e014_1  Tue_Feb_09_13:47:51_v09.11-e029_1  
+Wed_Jan_06_14:30:08_v09.11-e020_1
Mon_Jan_11_14:30:06_v09.11-e021_1  Thu_Feb_04_09:20:06_v09.11-e027_1 T
+ue_Nov_24_09:13:22_v09.10-b072_1  Wed_Jan_27_14:30:11_v09.11-e022_1
Mon_Mar_08_14:30:04_v09.11-s008_1  Thu_Jan_28_14:30:13_v09.11-e023_1  
+Tue_Nov_24_15:54:18_v09.11-e005_1  Wed_Mar_03_16:35:18_v09.11-s005_1
Mon_Nov_23_12:36:58_v09.11-e004_1  Tue_Dec_01_14:30:08_v09.10-p002_1  
+Tue_Nov_24_17:31:07_v09.10-p001_1  Wed_Nov_25_10:27:43_v09.11-e002_1
';
@valar1 = split(/[\s+\n]/, $valar);
foreach (@valar1)
        {
        if ($_ =~ /@dtar[1]/)
                {
                my ($ver1) = $_ =~ m/(v09.11-[a-z]\d{3})/;
                print "$ver1\n";
                last;
                }
        }

foreach (@valar1)
        {
        if (my ($ver2) = $_ =~ m/(v09.10-[a-z]\d{3})/)
                {
                print "$ver2\n";
                last;
                }
        }

foreach (@valar1)
        {
        if (my ($ver3) = $_ =~ m/(v08.\d{2}-[a-z]\d{3})/)
                {
                print "$ver3\n";
                last;
                }
        }
[download]

I have a feeling I have written waste lines of code but I cant figure out how to do this. Pls help!

Thanks!

BG