Have a look at at How can I pull out lines between two patterns that are themselves on different lines? in perlfaq6 for some ideas.

Here's some meta-code that should show the logic of how I'd approach this:

my $in_combat = 0;
#open the file for input
LINE:
while (my $line=readline($input_file)) {
   if (# line contains start-combat flag) {
      $in_combat = 1;
   }
   next LINE if (!$in_combat);
   # do stuff with lines *during* combat--beginning and end will be he
+re, too!
   if (#line contains end-combat flag) {
      $in_combat = 0;
   }
}
# close files, etcetc
[download]

TIMTOWTDI, of course.

druthb:

You may want to experiment with the flip/flop operator "..". It basically does the work of your $in_combat logic. It takes a little while to get used to, but it certainly makes the code a bit simpler once you're used to it:

$ cat krunk.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# Demo for flip-flop operator
#
use 5.14.0;
use warnings;
use autodie;

while (<DATA>) {
    if (/start/ .. /stop/) {
        # in combat!
        print "COMBAT: $_";
    }
}
__DATA__
soon the combat will begin
start combat!
Biff!  Pow!  Bam!
(Looks like Batman!)
stop combat
fight had three superlatives

$ perl krunk.pl
COMBAT: start combat!
COMBAT: Biff!  Pow!  Bam!
COMBAT: (Looks like Batman!)
COMBAT: stop combat
[download]

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

Brilliant! I had not seen that operator before. Thanks oodles, roboticus!

D Ruth Bavousett

Yet another approach (TIMTOWTDI): set the input record separator to let you collect the log entries, stanza by stanza. IOW, look for the end of a log entry, "stop combat" and slurp what precedes that, repeatedly

Borrowing from and extending roboticus' excellent sample data:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use 5.014;
#  971051

$/ = "stop combat";
my @array;
my $stanza;

for ( <DATA> ) {
    push @array, $_;
}

for $stanza ( @array ) {
    $stanza =~ s/\n/ /g;
    if ( $stanza =~ /.*?(?=start combat!)(.*?)(?=stop combat)/s ) {
       my $values = $1;
       $values =~ s/start combat!//;
       say "Log Entry: $values";
    } else {
        say "Whoops.";
    }
}


__DATA__
soon the combat will begin
start combat!
Biff!  Pow!  Bam!
(Looks like Batman!)
stop combat
fight had three superlatives

start combat!
Smash
Bang
Boom!
stop combat

more garbage...
here (even tho log is
not described as having non-value inclusions.

start combat!
foo
stop combat
[download]

Output:

Log Entry:  Biff!  Pow!  Bam! (Looks like Batman!)
Log Entry:  Smash Bang Boom!
Log Entry:  foo
[download]

If it is a big file, read it one line at a time instead of slurping into an array.

Look up Finite-State Machine (FSM) on Google. Your app toggles between SEARCHING_FOR_ENTERCOMBAT and FIND_THE_BOSS states.