NAME

DateTime::Format::Strptime - Parse and format strp and strf time patterns

SYNOPSIS

  use DateTime::Format::Strptime;

  my $Strp = new DateTime::Format::Strptime(
  				pattern 	=> '%T',
  				language	=> 'English',
  				time_zone	=> 'Melbourne/Australia',
  			);
  			
  my $dt = $Strp->parse_datetime('23:16:42');

  $Strp->format_datetime($dt);
	# 23:16:42

DESCRIPTION

This module replicates most of Strptime for DateTime. Strptime is the unix command that is the reverse of Strftime. While Strftime takes a DateTime and outputs it in a given format, Strptime takes a DateTime and a format and returns the DateTime object associated.

CONSTRUCTOR

• new( format=>$strptime_pattern )

  Creates the format object. You must specify a pattern, you can also specify a time_zone and language.

METHODS

This class offers the following methods.

• parse_datetime($string)

  Given a string in the format specified in the constructor, this method will return a new DateTime object.

  If given a string that doesn't match the format, the formatter will croak.

• format_datetime($datetime)

  Given a DateTime object, this methods returns a string formatted in the object's format.

• language($language)

  When given a language, this method sets its language appropriately.

  This method returns the current language. (After processing as above)

• pattern($strptime_pattern)

  When given a format, this method sets the object's format.

  This method returns the current format. (After processing as above)

EXPORTS

There are no methods exported by default, however the following are available:

• strptime($strptime_pattern, $string)

  Given a format and a string this function will return a new DateTime object.

• strftime($strptime_pattern, $datetime)

  Given a format and a DateTime object this function will return a formatted string.

PATTERN TOKENS

The following tokens are allowed in the format string:

• %%

  The % character.

• %a or %A

  The weekday name according to the current locale, in abbreviated form or the full name.

• %b or %B or %h

  The month name according to the current locale, in abbreviated form or the full name.

• %C

  The century number (0-99).

• %d or %e

  The day of month (1-31).

• %D

  Equivalent to %m/%d/%y. (This is the American style date, very confusing to non-Americans, especially since %d/%m/%y is widely used in Europe. The ISO 8601 standard format is %Y-%m-%d.)

• %g

  The year corresponding to the ISO week number, but without the century (0-99).

• %G

  The year corresponding to the ISO week number.

• %H

  The hour (0-23).

• %I

  The hour on a 12-hour clock (1-12).

• %j

  The day number in the year (1-366).

• %m

  The month number (1-12).

• %M

  The minute (0-59).

• %n

  Arbitrary whitespace.

• %p

  The equivalent of AM or PM according to the language in use. (See DateTime::Language)

• %r

  Equivalent to %I:%M:%S %p.

• %R

  Equivalent to %H:%M.

• %s

  Number of seconds since the Epoch.

• %S

  The second (0-60; 60 may occur for leap seconds. See DateTime::LeapSecond).

• %t

  Arbitrary whitespace.

• %T

  Equivalent to %H:%M:%S.

• %U

  The week number with Sunday the first day of the week (0-53). The first Sunday of January is the first day of week 1.

• %u

  The weekday number (1-7) with Monday = 1. This is the DateTime standard.

• %w

  The weekday number (0-6) with Sunday = 0.

• %W

  The week number with Monday the first day of the week (0-53). The first Monday of January is the first day of week 1.

• %y

  The year within century (0-99). When a century is not otherwise specified, values in the range 69-99 refer to years in the twen- tieth century (1969-1999); values in the range 00-68 refer to years in the twenty-first century (2000-2068).

• %Y

  The year, including century (for example, 1991).

• %z

  An RFC-822/ISO 8601 standard time zone specification. (For example +1100) [See note below]

• %Z

  The timezone name. (For example EST -- which is ambiguous) [See note below]

NOTES

• strftime

  All references to strftime are just aliases to the DateTime-strftime> method. See DateTime for more information

• Time Zones

  While the tokens %z and %Z accept time zone information, these are not used. You must set your object's timezone if you set these. Why? Each has its own reason: %z is an offset, but we can't tell if we're in DST until too late, so we can't use it to create our object. %Z is an ambiguous name for a time zone. There's an EST in Australia and in the USA. To fix this ambiguity strftime should add a token for Olsen style time zones. Oh well! If anyone wants to take a look at time zone parsing, be my guest. It should be used for checking and creating the objects in the code. Then we should set_timezone back to the object's zone just before returning it.

SUPPORT

Support for this module is provided via the datetime@perl.org email list. See http://lists.perl.org/ for more details.

Alternatively, log them via the CPAN RT system via the web or email:

http:// bug-datetime-format-strptime@rt.cpan.org

This makes it much easier for me to track things and thus means your problem is less likely to be neglected.

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright © Rick Measham, 2003. All rights reserved.

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

The full text of the licenses can be found in the LICENCE file included with this module.

AUTHOR

Rick Measham <rickm@cpan.org>

SEE ALSO

datetime@perl.org mailing list.

http://datetime.perl.org/

perl, DateTime

cpanm DateTime::Format::Strptime

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install DateTime::Format::Strptime