1HTTP::Date(3)         User Contributed Perl Documentation        HTTP::Date(3)
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NAME

6       HTTP::Date - date conversion routines
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SYNOPSIS

9        use HTTP::Date;
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11        $string = time2str($time);    # Format as GMT ASCII time
12        $time = str2time($string);    # convert ASCII date to machine time
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DESCRIPTION

15       This module provides functions that deal the date formats used by the
16       HTTP protocol (and then some more).  Only the first two functions,
17       time2str() and str2time(), are exported by default.
18
19       time2str( [$time] )
20           The time2str() function converts a machine time (seconds since
21           epoch) to a string.  If the function is called without an argument,
22           it will use the current time.
23
24           The string returned is in the format preferred for the HTTP proto‐
25           col.  This is a fixed length subset of the format defined by RFC
26           1123, represented in Universal Time (GMT).  An example of a time
27           stamp in this format is:
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29              Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT
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31       str2time( $str [, $zone] )
32           The str2time() function converts a string to machine time.  It
33           returns "undef" if the format of $str is unrecognized, otherwise
34           whatever the "Time::Local" functions can make out of the parsed
35           time.  Dates before the system's epoch may not work on all operat‐
36           ing systems.  The time formats recognized are the same as for
37           parse_date().
38
39           The function also takes an optional second argument that specifies
40           the default time zone to use when converting the date.  This param‐
41           eter is ignored if the zone is found in the date string itself.  If
42           this parameter is missing, and the date string format does not con‐
43           tain any zone specification, then the local time zone is assumed.
44
45           If the zone is not ""GMT"" or numerical (like ""-0800"" or
46           "+0100"), then the "Time::Zone" module must be installed in order
47           to get the date recognized.
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49       parse_date( $str )
50           This function will try to parse a date string, and then return it
51           as a list of numerical values followed by a (possible undefined)
52           time zone specifier; ($year, $month, $day, $hour, $min, $sec, $tz).
53           The $year returned will not have the number 1900 subtracted from it
54           and the $month numbers start with 1.
55
56           In scalar context the numbers are interpolated in a string of the
57           "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss TZ"-format and returned.
58
59           If the date is unrecognized, then the empty list is returned.
60
61           The function is able to parse the following formats:
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63            "Wed, 09 Feb 1994 22:23:32 GMT"       -- HTTP format
64            "Thu Feb  3 17:03:55 GMT 1994"        -- ctime(3) format
65            "Thu Feb  3 00:00:00 1994",           -- ANSI C asctime() format
66            "Tuesday, 08-Feb-94 14:15:29 GMT"     -- old rfc850 HTTP format
67            "Tuesday, 08-Feb-1994 14:15:29 GMT"   -- broken rfc850 HTTP format
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69            "03/Feb/1994:17:03:55 -0700"   -- common logfile format
70            "09 Feb 1994 22:23:32 GMT"     -- HTTP format (no weekday)
71            "08-Feb-94 14:15:29 GMT"       -- rfc850 format (no weekday)
72            "08-Feb-1994 14:15:29 GMT"     -- broken rfc850 format (no weekday)
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74            "1994-02-03 14:15:29 -0100"    -- ISO 8601 format
75            "1994-02-03 14:15:29"          -- zone is optional
76            "1994-02-03"                   -- only date
77            "1994-02-03T14:15:29"          -- Use T as separator
78            "19940203T141529Z"             -- ISO 8601 compact format
79            "19940203"                     -- only date
80
81            "08-Feb-94"         -- old rfc850 HTTP format    (no weekday, no time)
82            "08-Feb-1994"       -- broken rfc850 HTTP format (no weekday, no time)
83            "09 Feb 1994"       -- proposed new HTTP format  (no weekday, no time)
84            "03/Feb/1994"       -- common logfile format     (no time, no offset)
85
86            "Feb  3  1994"      -- Unix 'ls -l' format
87            "Feb  3 17:03"      -- Unix 'ls -l' format
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89            "11-15-96  03:52PM" -- Windows 'dir' format
90
91           The parser ignores leading and trailing whitespace.  It also allow
92           the seconds to be missing and the month to be numerical in most
93           formats.
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95           If the year is missing, then we assume that the date is the first
96           matching date before current month.  If the year is given with only
97           2 digits, then parse_date() will select the century that makes the
98           year closest to the current date.
99
100       time2iso( [$time] )
101           Same as time2str(), but returns a "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss"-formatted
102           string representing time in the local time zone.
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104       time2isoz( [$time] )
105           Same as time2str(), but returns a "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ssZ"-formatted
106           string representing Universal Time.
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SEE ALSO

109       "time" in perlfunc, Time::Zone
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112       Copyright 1995-1999, Gisle Aas
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114       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
115       under the same terms as Perl itself.
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119perl v5.8.8                       2004-04-06                     HTTP::Date(3)
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