Question

Perl newbie here. I have a log file that I need to parse out “Backup succeeded” and any “Error:” entries. I tried parsing the log file by using unix cat and piping it to grep. I got the information that I want, but I would like try this in perl and to also have the option to pass a date parameter and give me the lines based on the date I need.

Sample of log file output: (Backup succeeded)

Wed Jun 09 06:14:25 2010: db2.cal.mil.mad:backup:INFO: flush-logs-time=00:00:00
Wed Jun 09 06:14:25 2010: db2.cal.mil.mad:backup:INFO: backup-time=06:14:23
Wed Jun 09 06:14:25 2010: db2.cal.mil.mad:backup:INFO: backup-status=Backup succeeded
Wed Jun 09 06:14:25 2010: db2.cal.mil.mad:backup:INFO: Backup succeeded

Sample of log file output: (Error:)

Wed Jun 09 05:00:03 2010: rip1.mil.mad:backup:ERROR: mysql-zrm appears to be already running for this backupset
Wed Jun 09 05:00:03 2010: rip1.mil.mad:backup:ERROR: If you are sure mysql-zrm is not running, please remove the file /etc/mysql-zrm/rip1.mail.mad/.mysql-zrm.pid and restart mysql-zrm

**I would like a text and/or email with this information. Like so, but with the option to pass in the date I need.

Wed Jun 09 05:00:03 2010: rip1.mil.mad:backup:ERROR: mysql-zrm appears to be already running for this backupset
Wed Jun 09 05:00:03 2010: rip1.mil.mad:backup:ERROR: If you are sure mysql-zrm is not running, please remove the file /etc/mysql-zrm/rip1.mail.mad/.mysql-zrm.pid and restart mysql-zrm
Wed Jun 09 06:14:25 2010: db2.cal.mil.mad:backup:INFO: backup-status=Backup succeeded

If you would please provide me with some perl code and/or ideas to get started. I would appreciate the help. Thank you.

Answer 1

#!/usr/bin/perl

# usage example: <this script> Jun 09 2010 <logfile>

use strict;
use warnings;

my ($mon,$day,$year) = ($ARGV[0],$ARGV[1],$ARGV[2]);

open(FH,"< $ARGV[3]") or die "can't open log file $ARGV[3]: $!\n";

while (my $line = <FH>) {
    if ($line =~ /.* $mon $day \d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2} $year:.*(ERROR:|Backup succeeded)/) {
    print $line;
}
}