1. A method for validating a syslog message having a plurality of message components, comprising: providing a meta regular expression, said meta regular expression being formed from a set of regular expressions with each of said regular expressions corresponding to one of said plurality of message components, said meta-regular expression representing a plurality of message component patterns, each of said message component patterns representing a different ordering of individual regular expressions of said set of regular expressions; comparing said syslog message with said meta regular expression, said syslog message being deemed valid if said syslog message matches one of said plurality of message component patterns represented by said meta regular expression.