First off, a few style related points to ponder:

1. Be consistent with white space usage. Perl::Tidy is great for cleaning up code
2. Don't use & to call subs, it doesn't do what you think. Use subName(...) instead.
3. Don't use prototypes. They really don't do what you think.
4. Use early exits to clean up error handling logic and remove levels of indentation.

I'd put the code into a subroutine to make testing easier. I'd also simplify the time matching regex and perform the range checking outside the regex. Something like:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

for my $test ('', '234-10:23', '0:0:1', '0:1', '24:60') {
    my $fail = parseTime($test);

    print "Failed parsing '$test': $fail\n" if $fail;
}


sub parseTime {
    my ($inputTxt) = @_;

    return "Bad input value" if !defined $inputTxt || !length $inputTx
+t;

    $inputTxt =~ s/^\s+|\s+$//g;

    return "Bad time string"
        if $inputTxt !~ /^(?:(\d{1,3})-)?(?:(\d+):)?(\d+):(\d+)/;

    my ($days, $hours, $mins, $secs) = map {$_ || 0} $1, $2, $3, $4;

    return "Bad day count: $days"     if $days > 366 && $days >= 0;
    return "Bad hour value: $hours"   if $hours > 23 && $hours >= 0;
    return "Bad minutes value: $mins" if $mins > 59 && $mins >= 0;
    return "Bad seconds value: $secs" if $secs > 59 && $secs >= 0;

    my $totalSecs =
        ($days * 24 * 3600) + ($hours * 3600) + ($mins * 60) + $secs;

    print "$inputTxt - ${totalSecs}s\n";
    return;
}
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Prints:

Failed parsing '': Bad input value
234-10:23 - 20218223s
0:0:1 - 1s
0:1 - 1s
Failed parsing '24:60': Bad seconds value: 60
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Thanks very much for taking the time to provide detailed feedback as well as a much easier-to-test alternative.

I thought that & was just the way you call subroutines, but I have more to learn. And I like the fact that by making it a subroutine you can much more easily test your code in place.

Thanks again,
Mike

Perhaps you want something like this:

my ( $seconds, $minutes, $hours, $days ) = reverse $inputTxt =~ /\d+/g
+;
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Try the Date::Manip module:

use Date::Manip::Date; 
my $base = Date::Manip::Date->new; 
for my $deltastr ("32:05", "11:32:05") { 
   $delta = $base->new_delta($deltastr); 
   $deltasec = $delta->printf("%sys"); 
   print "$deltastr => $deltasec s\n"; 
}

=begin output

32:05 => 1925 s
11:32:05 => 41525 s

=end output

=cut
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Update: this is incorrect, for it doesn't work for times greater than a day that ps outputs, eg. "35-04:04:09". I guess there's no simpler workaround other than separating the fields (or at least the day field) manually using a regex.

See also Get Process Start Time.

You want the ? which allows 0 or 1 occurrence of the preceding element.

my $timeRegex = '((?:[0-1][0-9]:)?[0-5][0-9]:[0-5][0-9])';
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Thank you. This is what happens when you don't fully understand the regex that is generated for you.

ps -p $pid -o etime --no-heading|perl -aF'[:-]' -nE'say+pop(@F)+60*pop
+(@F)+3600*pop(@F)+84600*pop@F'
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