What i need is for my code to only accept input of 1 digit before the decimal place and 5 after , a space, a comma.. then an 8 character time using : as a seperator that will ignore any data on the same line after the seconds.
You seem to know what you want, so it's just a case of following your spec... 
my @data = split /\n/, <<EOS;
1.57163 ,17:29:57 Simple Dealin
1.57163 ,17:29:57
1.57163 ,17:29:57
1.57163 ,17:29:57
1.57163 ,17:29:57
1.57163 ,17:29:57
1.57163 ,17:29:57
1.571 ,17:
1.57172 ,17:30:08
1.57176 ,17:30:10
EOS

for ( @data ) {
    if ( my ( $quote, $time, $comment ) =
         m{
              ^                # start of string
              (\d\.\d{5})      # a digit, dot and 5 more digits
              \s,              # a space and a comma
              (\d\d:\d\d:\d\d) # an 8 character time
              \s*              # some spaces
              (.*)             # everything else's a commment
              $                # end of string
      }x ) {
        print "$quote / $time",
          $comment ne '' ? " / $comment" : '',
            "\n";
    }
}

[download]

Output: 

1.57163 / 17:29:57 / Simple Dealin
1.57163 / 17:29:57
1.57163 / 17:29:57
1.57163 / 17:29:57
1.57163 / 17:29:57
1.57163 / 17:29:57
1.57163 / 17:29:57
1.57172 / 17:30:08
1.57176 / 17:30:10

[download]

Update:

See perlre and perlretut for the details

In reply to Re: handling erronous input by FunkyMonk
in thread handling erronous input by Conal

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