lol, yes it keep going and going and going. Any ideas about how to make it exit once 3 occurrences are cough in the tail -f command?

tail -f doesn't end until you interrupt it. Try something like this:

#! perl -slw
use strict;

my $pid = open TAIL, '-|', 'tail -f theLog' or die $!;
my @matches;
while( @matched <3 and defined( $_ = <TAIL> ) ) {
      push @matches, $_ if /the search term/;
}

kill 2, $pid;

## do something with the 3 lines in @matches.
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---

With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

RIP Neil Armstrong

Try this, May this will help

use File::Tail;

sub reading_updated_file
{
    my $path=shift;
    my $count=0;
    my $file=File::Tail->new($path);
    while(defined (my $read=$file->read))
    {
      if($read =~ /string_to_match/)
        { 
          $count++;
           last if $count ==3;
          
        }

    print "here doing rest statements";
    }

    
}
&reading_updated_file("path of file_to tail");
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This just really helped me. Note that @matches is declared but is interchangeably used as @matched, apart from that, this is really useful - thanks :)