NAME

DateTime::Format::Natural - Create machine readable date/time with natural parsing logic

SYNOPSIS

use DateTime::Format::Natural;

$parser = DateTime::Format::Natural->new;

$dt = $parser->parse_datetime($date_string);
@dt = $parser->parse_datetime_duration($date_string);

if ($parser->success) {
    # operate on $dt/@dt, for example:
    printf("%02s.%02s.%4s %02s:%02s:%02s\n", $dt->day,
                                             $dt->month,
                                             $dt->year,
                                             $dt->hour,
                                             $dt->min,
                                             $dt->sec);
} else {
    warn $parser->error;
}

DESCRIPTION

DateTime::Format::Natural takes a string with a human readable date/time and creates a machine readable one by applying natural parsing logic.

METHODS

new

Creates a new DateTime::Format::Natural object. Arguments to new() are options and not necessarily required.

$parser = DateTime::Format::Natural->new(
          lang          => '[en|de]',
          format        => 'mm/dd/yy',
          prefer_future => '[0|1]'
          daytime       => { morning   => 06,
                             afternoon => 13,
                             evening   => 20,
                           },
);

• lang

  Contains the language selected, currently limited to en (english) & de (german). Defaults to 'en'.

• format

  Specifies the format of numeric dates, defaults to 'd/m/y'.

• prefer_future (experimental)

  Turns ambigious weekdays/months to their futuristic relatives. Accepts a boolean, defaults to 0.

• daytime

  A hash consisting of specific hours given for peculiar daytimes. Daytimes may be selectively changed.

parse_datetime

Creates a DateTime object from a human readable date/time string.

$dt = $parser->parse_datetime($date_string);

$dt = $parser->parse_datetime(
      string => $date_string,
      debug  => 1,
);

• string

  The date string.

• debug

  Boolean value indicating debugging mode.

  If debugging is enabled, each token that is analysed will be output to STDOUT with a trailing newline appended.

Returns a DateTime object.

parse_datetime_duration

Creates one or more DateTime object(s) from a human readable date/time string which may contain timespans/durations. 'Same' interface & options as parse_datetime(), but must be explicitly called in list context.

@dt = $parser->parse_datetime_duration($date_string);

@dt = $parser->parse_datetime_duration(
      string => $date_string,
      debug  => 1,
);

success

Returns a boolean indicating success or failure for parsing the date/time string given.

error

Returns the error message if the parsing didn't succeed.

trace

Returns a trace of methods which we're called within the Base class and a summary how often certain units were modified.

EXAMPLES

See the modules DateTime::Format::Natural::Lang::* for a overview of valid input.

CREDITS

Thanks to Tatsuhiko Miyagawa for the initial inspiration. See Miyagawa's journal entry http://use.perl.org/~miyagawa/journal/31378 for more information.

Furthermore, thanks to (in order of appearance) who have contributed valuable suggestions & patches:

Clayton L. Scott
Dave Rolsky
CPAN Author 'SEKIMURA'
mike (pulsation)
Mark Stosberg
Tuomas Jormola
Cory Watson
Urs Stotz
Shawn M. Moore
Andreas J. König
Chia-liang Kao

SEE ALSO

DateTime, Date::Calc, http://datetime.perl.org

AUTHOR

Steven Schubiger <schubiger@cpan.org>

LICENSE

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

See http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html

cpanm DateTime::Format::Natural

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