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HTTP::Date(3)                        User Contributed Perl Documentation                       HTTP::Date(3)



NAME
       HTTP::Date - date conversion routines

SYNOPSIS
        use HTTP::Date;

        $string = time2str($time);    # Format as GMT ASCII time
        $time = str2time($string);    # convert ASCII date to machine time

DESCRIPTION
       This module provides functions that deal the date formats used by the HTTP protocol (and then some
       more).  Only the first two functions, time2str() and str2time(), are exported by default.

       time2str( [$time] )
           The time2str() function converts a machine time (seconds since epoch) to a string.  If the
           function is called without an argument, it will use the current time.

           The string returned is in the format preferred for the HTTP protocol.  This is a fixed length
           subset of the format defined by RFC 1123, represented in Universal Time (GMT).  An example of a
           time stamp in this format is:

              Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT

       str2time( $str [, $zone] )
           The str2time() function converts a string to machine time.  It returns "undef" if the format of
           $str is unrecognized, otherwise whatever the "Time::Local" functions can make out of the parsed
           time.  Dates before the system's epoch may not work on all operating systems.  The time formats
           recognized are the same as for parse_date().

           The function also takes an optional second argument that specifies the default time zone to use
           when converting the date.  This parameter is ignored if the zone is found in the date string
           itself.  If this parameter is missing, and the date string format does not contain any zone
           specification, then the local time zone is assumed.

           If the zone is not ""GMT"" or numerical (like ""-0800"" or "+0100"), then the "Time::Zone" module
           must be installed in order to get the date recognized.

       parse_date( $str )
           This function will try to parse a date string, and then return it as a list of numerical values
           followed by a (possible undefined) time zone specifier; ($year, $month, $day, $hour, $min, $sec,
           $tz).  The $year returned will not have the number 1900 subtracted from it and the $month numbers
           start with 1.

           In scalar context the numbers are interpolated in a string of the "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss TZ"-format
           and returned.

           If the date is unrecognized, then the empty list is returned.

           The function is able to parse the following formats:

            "Wed, 09 Feb 1994 22:23:32 GMT"       -- HTTP format
            "Thu Feb  3 17:03:55 GMT 1994"        -- ctime(3) format
            "Thu Feb  3 00:00:00 1994",           -- ANSI C asctime() format
            "Tuesday, 08-Feb-94 14:15:29 GMT"     -- old rfc850 HTTP format
            "Tuesday, 08-Feb-1994 14:15:29 GMT"   -- broken rfc850 HTTP format

            "03/Feb/1994:17:03:55 -0700"   -- common logfile format
            "09 Feb 1994 22:23:32 GMT"     -- HTTP format (no weekday)
            "08-Feb-94 14:15:29 GMT"       -- rfc850 format (no weekday)
            "08-Feb-1994 14:15:29 GMT"     -- broken rfc850 format (no weekday)

            "1994-02-03 14:15:29 -0100"    -- ISO 8601 format
            "1994-02-03 14:15:29"          -- zone is optional
            "1994-02-03"                   -- only date
            "1994-02-03T14:15:29"          -- Use T as separator
            "19940203T141529Z"             -- ISO 8601 compact format
            "19940203"                     -- only date

            "08-Feb-94"         -- old rfc850 HTTP format    (no weekday, no time)
            "08-Feb-1994"       -- broken rfc850 HTTP format (no weekday, no time)
            "09 Feb 1994"       -- proposed new HTTP format  (no weekday, no time)
            "03/Feb/1994"       -- common logfile format     (no time, no offset)

            "Feb  3  1994"      -- Unix 'ls -l' format
            "Feb  3 17:03"      -- Unix 'ls -l' format

            "11-15-96  03:52PM" -- Windows 'dir' format

           The parser ignores leading and trailing whitespace.  It also allow the seconds to be missing and
           the month to be numerical in most formats.

           If the year is missing, then we assume that the date is the first matching date before current
           month.  If the year is given with only 2 digits, then parse_date() will select the century that
           makes the year closest to the current date.

       time2iso( [$time] )
           Same as time2str(), but returns a "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss"-formatted string representing time in the
           local time zone.

       time2isoz( [$time] )
           Same as time2str(), but returns a "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ssZ"-formatted string representing Universal
           Time.

SEE ALSO
       "time" in perlfunc, Time::Zone

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright 1995-1999, Gisle Aas

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



perl v5.8.9                                      2008-04-07                                    HTTP::Date(3)