NAME

Set::Range - Easy conditional operations on a set of ranges.

SYNOPSIS

use Set::Range;

my %set= ('1' => { 	lower => 0,
			upper => 10,
			upper_inclusive => 1,
		},
    	  '2' => { 	lower => 11,
			upper => 100,
			lower_inclusive => 1,
		 },
	);

my $range=Set::Range->new(\%set); print $range->getSet('19', NUM_RANGE); 
# prints "2"



my %set= ('Jan' => { 	lower => '1/1/2001',
			upper => '1/31/2001',
			upper_inclusive => 1,
			lower_inclusive => 1,
		}, # Days in January
    	  'Feb' => { 	lower => '2/1/2001',
			upper => '2/28/2001',
			upper_inclusive => 1,
			lower_inclusive => 1,
		 }, # Days in February
	);

my $range=Set::Range->new(\%set);

print $range->getSet('1/11/2001', DATE_RANGE);
# prints "Jan"

INSTALLATION

perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install

Win32 users substitute "make" with "nmake" or equivalent. nmake is available at http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc15/Patch/1.52/W95/EN-US/Nmake15.exe

DESCRIPTION

Set::Range allows you to define ranges of numeric or date values and will return the set that a given test value lies in. This module removes the need for multiple if .. elsif .. (etc) tests and lets you modify the sets on the fly without having to recode the logic in your scripts.

E.g.: define date ranges and test for which set '1/1/2002' is in.

METHODS

new

This creates the Set::Range Object

Example: my $range = Set::Range->new(\%sets);

Pass C<new()> a reference to a Hash containing the set
information.

%sets

The hash defining the sets contains one hash per set
with at least 'upper' and 'lower' defined.
'upper_inclusive' and 'lower_inclusive' are optional
and are the equivalent of >= and <= for the upper and 
lower set boundries.

The set hash can look like this:

{ 
  'key1' => { 
		lower => 0,
		upper => 10
		},
  'key2' => {
  		lower => 10,
  		upper => 15,
  		lower_inclusive => 1,
  	      },
  'key3' => {
  		lower => 15
  		upper => 25,
  		lower_inclusive => 1,
  		upper_inclusive => 1,
  	      },
 }

etc... The lower and upper values can either be
numeric values or date values in the form
mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy (see C<getSet> for
Euro-formatted dates)

getSet

getSet() returns the value of the set that the test item is a member of. Optionally accepts one of the following contants (defaults to numeric): NUM_RANGE, DATE_RANGE, EU_DATE_RANGE, TIME_RANGE(same as NUM_RANGE)

Examples:

my $set = $range->getSet(10);
my $set = $range->getSet('1/14/2002', DATE_RANGE);

getSet returns 0 if the test value was not found to be a member of any set.

Note: Set::Range uses Date::Calc functions to convert the date to a datestamp. I settled on Date::Calc because Time::Local doesn't support years > 2038.

EXPORT

NUM_RANGE, DATE_RANGE, EU_DATE_RANGE, TIME_RANGE constants

BUGS & REQUESTS

Please let me know!

SEE ALSO

Date::Calc

AUTHOR

S. Flack : perl@simonflack.com