Sorry for taking so long. (Doing other things, laundry breakfast, you know how it is.) Anyways here is an incremental solution:

package Service::ParseLog;
use strict;
use Carp;
use Symbol qw/gensym/;

# Takes the log filename and opens for parsing
sub new {
  my $class = shift;
  my $file = shift or croak("No filename passed");
  my $obj = {};
  $obj->{file} = $file;
  my $fh = &gensym();
  open ($fh, "<$file") or confess("Cannot read $file: $!");
  $obj->{fh} = $fh;
  $obj->{line_no} = 0;
  return bless $obj, $class;
}

# Reads the next service section.  In array context it
# the lines in the service.  In scalar it returns whether
# there is more in the file.  The service is in the
# last_service field.  The is_parsing field indicates
# whether it found the end of the last service it started.
sub read_service {
  my $self = shift;
  my $fh = $self->{fh};
  my $line_no = $self->{line_no};
  
  # Find the *'s for the service
  if (<$fh>) {
    ++$line_no;
    if (/^\*{5}/) {
      $self->{is_parsing} = 1;
    }
    else {
      confess("No next service at $line_no in $self->{file}");
    }
  }
  else {
    # EOF
    undef($self->{last_service});
    return 0;
  }
   
  # Grab a service section and return it   
  my @service;
  $self->{is_parsing} = 1;
  while (<$fh>) {
    ++$line_no;
    if (/^\*{5}/) {
      # End of service
      $self->{is_parsing} = 0;
     last;
    }
    else {
      push @service, $_;
    }
  }
  $self->{line_no} = $line_no;
  $self->{last_section} = \@service;
  return wantarray ? @service : !$self->{is_parsing};
}
[download]

(If you want, stick a 1; and the end and make it into a module.)

How would you use it? Well like this:

my $log = new Service::ParseLog("servlog.txt");
while ($log->read_service()) {
  my @lines = @{$log->{last_service}};
  # do stuff
}
if ($log->{is_parsing}) {
  # Incomplete last service
}
[download]

Note that I did a fair amount of validation. If your format is not exactly what you described you could have some problems. The reported errors should be informative enough to figure out what is wrong though, just change the tests.

And /tell tilly if you have any problems with this. :-)

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.