#!/usr/bin/perl -- use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dump; my $start = qx{date +'%b %e %T'}; my $end = qx{date -d '10 mins ago' +'%b %e %T'}; dd $start, $end; while (<>) { my @Fld = split(' ', $_, -1); my $tm = $Fld[(1)-1] . ' ' . $Fld[(2)-1] . ' ' . $Fld[(3)-1]; print $_ if $start lt $tm and $tm lt $end; }