NAME

Tie::Scalar::Timestamp - Create a scalar that always returns the current timestamp

SYNOPSIS

# create a timestamp variable that uses localtime 
# and yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss (ISO8601) format
tie my $timestamp, 'Tie::Scalar::Timestamp';

print "$timestamp\n";    # e.g. 2005-02-25T11:02:34
sleep 2;                 # wait 2 seconds...
print "$timestamp\n";    # ...  2005-02-25T11:02:36

# this will die; $timestamp is a readonly variable
$timestamp = '2004';

# create a timestamp variable that returns just the time in UTC
tie my $utc_timestamp, 'Tie::Scalar::Timestamp', { strftime => '%H:%M:%S', utc => 1 };

# set the default format
$Tie::Scalar::Timestamp::DEFAULT_STRFTIME = '%H:%M:%S';

DESCRIPTION

This is a very simple class that creates readonly scalars that always return the current timestamp. By default, it uses the format yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss (or, in strftime notation, %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S) and local time. You can optionally pass a hashref of options to the call to tie to specify a pattern and whether to use UTC time instead of local time.

A variables tied to this class is readonly, and attempting to assign to it will raise an exception.

OPTIONS

The following options can be passed in a hashref to tie.

strftime

The strftime pattern to fromat the timestamp as. The default pattern is %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S. To change the default, set $Tie::Scalar::Timestamp::DEFAULT_STRFTIME to your prefered pattern.

utc

Use UTC time instead of local time.

no_die

Do not throw an exception when attempting to assign to a timestamp. This module will still emit a warning if you have warnings enabled.

SEE ALSO

perltie, Tie::Scalar, strftime(3)

AUTHOR

Peter Eichman, <peichman@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright ©2005 by Peter Eichman.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.