I want to split the specific words in "result" varaible which comes after "transaction","user:" and "#" .I could achieve it through the below code. But at times there wont be the line start with "#"(Its an optional one). I am not able to handle such cases (when $3 is blank) 

foreach my $number(@transaction_numbers) {
    my $result =`command to get result`;
    print $result;
    while ($result =~ /transaction (\d+).*user:\s*(\S+)\s*#\s*(.*)/g) 
+{
            my ($transaction, $user, $comment) = ($1, $2, $3);
            printf "%-12s %-10s %s\n", $1, $2, $3;
     }
}

[download]
The code works fine with the 1st transaction, but shows prints nothing for 2nd one

output of $result is : 

transaction 1234567; promote; 2014/08/01 10:22:37 ; user: john
  # Performing a "promote" on file.
  /./abc/desf/test.pl 138699/1 (138700/1) 

transaction 4578643; promote; 2014/08/01 10:22:37 ; user: sam
  /./abc/desf/test.pl 138699/1 (138700/1)

[download]

Curent output is 

Transaction     User   Comments  
1234567         john   Performing a "promote" on file.

[download]

Desired output is 

Transaction     User   Comments  
1234567        john   Performing a "promote" on file. 
4578643        sam

[download]

In reply to Reg the split expression by sravs448

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