Ok, now I understand.
Here's what I tried, sorry I wasn't more specific. Unfortunately it only displays green:
$logfile="log.txt";
$error=(/DOWN/);
$warn=(/PROBLEM/);
$redbutton="\<img src\=\'default_files/perlredblink2\.gif'>";
$greenbutton="\<img src\=\'default_files/perlgreenblink\.gif'>";
$yellowbutton="\<img src\=\'default_files/perlyellowblink\.gif'>";
open LOG, $logfile or die "Cannot open $logfile for read :$!";
# @logarray=<LOG>; # dumps all of $logfile into @logarray
use strict;
# Set the button to green initially
my $button = "perlgreenblink";
# test the file line by line.
# The line gets read into $_
# I am testing on the DATA segment to illustrate the point
while (<DATA>){
# test with a regex and end the
# while loop if there is a problem
if (/DOWN/){
$button = "perlredblink2";
last;
}
if (/PROBLEM/){
$button = "perlyellowblink";
last;
}
}
print "HTML for <img src=\"$button.gif\">\n";