# more perl_epoch open my $in, '<', 'jabadm_history' or die "Bummer: $!"; open my $out, '>', 'jabadm.txt' or die "What: $!"; while(my $line = <$in>){ if(my ($epoch) = $line =~ /^#\+(\d+)\s*$/){ my $human_readable = `date -d \@$epoch`; # or: # my $human_readable = scalar localtime $epoch; print $out $human_readable; } else{ print $out $line; } } # ls -lrt jabadm_history -rw-r--r-- 1 jabadm sapsys 1518 Mar 27 13:31 jabadm_history # ./perl_epoch ./perl_epoch: line 1: open: command not found ./perl_epoch: line 2: open: command not found ./perl_epoch: line 4: syntax error near unexpected token `)' ./perl_epoch: line 4: `while(my $line = <$in>){'