date::parse(3) [redhat man page]
Date::Parse(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Date::Parse(3) NAME
Date::Parse - Parse date strings into time values SYNOPSIS
use Date::Parse; $time = str2time($date); ($ss,$mm,$hh,$day,$month,$year,$zone) = strptime($date); DESCRIPTION
"Date::Parse" provides two routines for parsing date strings into time values. str2time(DATE [, ZONE]) "str2time" parses "DATE" and returns a unix time value, or undef upon failure. "ZONE", if given, specifies the timezone to assume when parsing if the date string does not specify a timezome. strptime(DATE [, ZONE]) "strptime" takes the same arguments as str2time but returns an array of values "($ss,$mm,$hh,$day,$month,$year,$zone)". Elements are only defined if they could be extracted from the date string. The $zone element is the timezone offset in seconds from GMT. An empty array is returned upon failure. MULTI-LANGUAGE SUPPORT Date::Parse is capable of parsing dates in several languages, these are English, French, German and Italian. Changing the language is done via a static method call, for example Date::Parse->language('German'); will cause Date::Parse to attempt to parse any subsequent dates in German. This is only a first pass, I am considering changing this to be $lang = Date::Language->new('German'); $lang->str2time("25 Jun 1996 21:09:55 +0100"); I am open to suggestions on this. EXAMPLE DATES
Below is a sample list of dates that are known to be parsable with Date::Parse 1995:01:24T09:08:17.1823213 ISO-8601 1995-01-24T09:08:17.1823213 Wed, 16 Jun 94 07:29:35 CST Comma and day name are optional Thu, 13 Oct 94 10:13:13 -0700 Wed, 9 Nov 1994 09:50:32 -0500 (EST) Text in ()'s will be ignored. 21 dec 17:05 Will be parsed in the current time zone 21-dec 17:05 21/dec 17:05 21/dec/93 17:05 1999 10:02:18 "GMT" 16 Nov 94 22:28:20 PST BUGS
When both the month and the date are specified in the date as numbers they are always parsed assuming that the month number comes before the date. This is the usual format used in American dates. The reason why it is like this and not dynamic is that it must be deterministic. Several people have suggested using the current locale, but this will not work as the date being parsed may not be in the format of the current locale. My plans to address this, which will be in a future release, is to allow the programmer to state what order they want these values parsed in. AUTHOR
Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com> COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1995 Graham Barr. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. perl v5.8.0 2002-06-06 Date::Parse(3)
Check Out this Related Man Page
Date::Format(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Date::Format(3) NAME
Date::Format - Date formating subroutines SYNOPSIS
use Date::Format; @lt = localtime(time); print time2str($template, time); print strftime($template, @lt); print time2str($template, time, $zone); print strftime($template, @lt, $zone); print ctime(time); print asctime(@lt); print ctime(time, $zone); print asctime(@lt, $zone); DESCRIPTION
This module provides routines to format dates into ASCII strings. They correspond to the C library routines "strftime" and "ctime". time2str(TEMPLATE, TIME [, ZONE]) "time2str" converts "TIME" into an ASCII string using the conversion specification given in "TEMPLATE". "ZONE" if given specifies the zone which the output is required to be in, "ZONE" defaults to your current zone. strftime(TEMPLATE, TIME [, ZONE]) "strftime" is similar to "time2str" with the exception that the time is passed as an array, such as the array returned by "localtime". ctime(TIME [, ZONE]) "ctime" calls "time2str" with the given arguments using the conversion specification "%a %b %e %T %Y " asctime(TIME [, ZONE]) "asctime" calls "time2str" with the given arguments using the conversion specification "%a %b %e %T %Y " MULTI-LANGUAGE SUPPORT Date::Format is capable of formating into several languages, these are English, French, German and Italian. Changing the language is done via a static method call, for example Date::Format->language('German'); will change the language in which all subsequent dates are formatted. This is only a first pass, I am considering changing this to be $lang = Date::Language->new('German'); $lang->time2str("%a %b %e %T %Y ", time); I am open to suggestions on this. CONVERSION SPECIFICATION
Each conversion specification is replaced by appropriate characters as described in the following list. The appropriate characters are determined by the LC_TIME category of the program's locale. %% PERCENT %a day of the week abbr %A day of the week %b month abbr %B month %c MM/DD/YY HH:MM:SS %C ctime format: Sat Nov 19 21:05:57 1994 %d numeric day of the month, with leading zeros (eg 01..31) %e numeric day of the month, without leading zeros (eg 1..31) %D MM/DD/YY %h month abbr %H hour, 24 hour clock, leading 0's) %I hour, 12 hour clock, leading 0's) %j day of the year %k hour %l hour, 12 hour clock %L month number, starting with 1 %m month number, starting with 01 %M minute, leading 0's %n NEWLINE %o ornate day of month -- "1st", "2nd", "25th", etc. %p AM or PM %P am or pm (Yes %p and %P are backwards :) %q Quarter number, starting with 1 %r time format: 09:05:57 PM %R time format: 21:05 %s seconds since the Epoch, UCT %S seconds, leading 0's %t TAB %T time format: 21:05:57 %U week number, Sunday as first day of week %w day of the week, numerically, Sunday == 0 %W week number, Monday as first day of week %x date format: 11/19/94 %X time format: 21:05:57 %y year (2 digits) %Y year (4 digits) %Z timezone in ascii. eg: PST %z timezone in format -/+0000 %d, %e, %H, %I, %j, %k, %l, %m, %M, %q, %y and %Y can be output in Roman numerals by prefixing the letter with "O", e.g. %OY will output the year as roman numerals. AUTHOR
Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com> COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1995-1999 Graham Barr. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. perl v5.8.0 2002-03-07 Date::Format(3)