1Date::Calc(3)         User Contributed Perl Documentation        Date::Calc(3)
2
3
4

NAME

6       Date::Calc - Gregorian calendar date calculations
7

MOTTO

9       Keep it small, fast and simple
10

PREFACE

12       This package consists of a C library and a Perl module (which uses the
13       C library, internally) for all kinds of date calculations based on the
14       Gregorian calendar (the one used in all western countries today),
15       thereby complying with all relevant norms and standards:
16       ISO/R 2015-1971, DIN 1355 and, to some extent, ISO 8601 (where
17       applicable).
18
19       (See also http://www.engelschall.com/u/sb/download/Date-Calc/DIN1355/
20       for a scan of part of the "DIN 1355" document (in German)).
21
22       The module of course handles year numbers of 2000 and above correctly
23       ("Year 2000" or "Y2K" compliance) -- actually all year numbers from 1
24       to the largest positive integer representable on your system (which is
25       at least 32767) can be dealt with.
26
27       This is not true, however, for the import/export functions in this
28       package which are an interface to the internal POSIX date and time
29       functions of your system, which can only cover dates in the following
30       ranges:
31
32        01-Jan-1970 00:00:00 GMT .. 19-Jan-2038 03:14:07 GMT [Unix etc.]
33        01-Jan-1904 00:00:00 LT  .. 06-Feb-2040 06:28:15 LT  [MacOS Classic]
34        (LT = local time)
35
36       Note that this package projects the Gregorian calendar back until the
37       year 1 A.D. -- even though the Gregorian calendar was only adopted in
38       1582, mostly by the Catholic European countries, in obedience to the
39       corresponding decree of Pope Gregory XIII in that year.
40
41       Some (mainly protestant) countries continued to use the Julian calendar
42       (used until then) until as late as the beginning of the 20th century.
43
44       Finally, note that this package is not intended to do everything you
45       could ever imagine automagically for you; it is rather intended to
46       serve as a toolbox (in the best of UNIX spirit and traditions) which
47       should, however, always get you where you want to go.
48
49       See the section "RECIPES" at the bottom of this document for solutions
50       to common problems!
51
52       If nevertheless you can't figure out how to solve a particular problem,
53       please let me know! (See e-mail address at the end of this document.)
54

SYNOPSIS

56         use Date::Calc qw(
57             Days_in_Year
58             Days_in_Month
59             Weeks_in_Year
60             leap_year
61             check_date
62             check_time
63             check_business_date
64             Day_of_Year
65             Date_to_Days
66             Day_of_Week
67             Week_Number
68             Week_of_Year
69             Monday_of_Week
70             Nth_Weekday_of_Month_Year
71             Standard_to_Business
72             Business_to_Standard
73             Delta_Days
74             Delta_DHMS
75             Delta_YMD
76             Delta_YMDHMS
77             N_Delta_YMD
78             N_Delta_YMDHMS
79             Normalize_DHMS
80             Add_Delta_Days
81             Add_Delta_DHMS
82             Add_Delta_YM
83             Add_Delta_YMD
84             Add_Delta_YMDHMS
85             Add_N_Delta_YMD
86             Add_N_Delta_YMDHMS
87             System_Clock
88             Today
89             Now
90             Today_and_Now
91             This_Year
92             Gmtime
93             Localtime
94             Mktime
95             Timezone
96             Date_to_Time
97             Time_to_Date
98             Easter_Sunday
99             Decode_Month
100             Decode_Day_of_Week
101             Decode_Language
102             Decode_Date_EU
103             Decode_Date_US
104             Fixed_Window
105             Moving_Window
106             Compress
107             Uncompress
108             check_compressed
109             Compressed_to_Text
110             Date_to_Text
111             Date_to_Text_Long
112             English_Ordinal
113             Calendar
114             Month_to_Text
115             Day_of_Week_to_Text
116             Day_of_Week_Abbreviation
117             Language_to_Text
118             Language
119             Languages
120             Decode_Date_EU2
121             Decode_Date_US2
122             Parse_Date
123             ISO_LC
124             ISO_UC
125         );
126
127         use Date::Calc qw(:all);
128
129         Days_in_Year
130             $days = Days_in_Year($year,$month);
131
132         Days_in_Month
133             $days = Days_in_Month($year,$month);
134
135         Weeks_in_Year
136             $weeks = Weeks_in_Year($year);
137
138         leap_year
139             if (leap_year($year))
140
141         check_date
142             if (check_date($year,$month,$day))
143
144         check_time
145             if (check_time($hour,$min,$sec))
146
147         check_business_date
148             if (check_business_date($year,$week,$dow))
149
150         Day_of_Year
151             $doy = Day_of_Year($year,$month,$day);
152
153         Date_to_Days
154             $days = Date_to_Days($year,$month,$day);
155
156         Day_of_Week
157             $dow = Day_of_Week($year,$month,$day);
158
159         Week_Number
160             $week = Week_Number($year,$month,$day);          # DEPRECATED
161
162         Week_of_Year
163             ($week,$year) = Week_of_Year($year,$month,$day); # RECOMMENDED
164             $week = Week_of_Year($year,$month,$day);         # DANGEROUS
165
166         Monday_of_Week
167             ($year,$month,$day) = Monday_of_Week($week,$year);
168
169         Nth_Weekday_of_Month_Year
170             if (($year,$month,$day) =
171             Nth_Weekday_of_Month_Year($year,$month,$dow,$n))
172
173         Standard_to_Business
174             ($year,$week,$dow) =
175             Standard_to_Business($year,$month,$day);
176
177         Business_to_Standard
178             ($year,$month,$day) =
179             Business_to_Standard($year,$week,$dow);
180
181         Delta_Days
182             $Dd = Delta_Days($year1,$month1,$day1,
183                              $year2,$month2,$day2);
184
185         Delta_DHMS
186             ($Dd,$Dh,$Dm,$Ds) =
187             Delta_DHMS($year1,$month1,$day1, $hour1,$min1,$sec1,
188                        $year2,$month2,$day2, $hour2,$min2,$sec2);
189
190         Delta_YMD
191             ($Dy,$Dm,$Dd) =
192             Delta_YMD($year1,$month1,$day1,
193                       $year2,$month2,$day2);
194
195         Delta_YMDHMS
196             ($D_y,$D_m,$D_d, $Dh,$Dm,$Ds) =
197             Delta_YMDHMS($year1,$month1,$day1, $hour1,$min1,$sec1,
198                          $year2,$month2,$day2, $hour2,$min2,$sec2);
199
200         N_Delta_YMD
201             ($Dy,$Dm,$Dd) =
202             N_Delta_YMD($year1,$month1,$day1,
203                         $year2,$month2,$day2);
204
205         N_Delta_YMDHMS
206             ($D_y,$D_m,$D_d, $Dhh,$Dmm,$Dss) =
207             N_Delta_YMDHMS($year1,$month1,$day1, $hour1,$min1,$sec1,
208                            $year2,$month2,$day2, $hour2,$min2,$sec2);
209
210         Normalize_DHMS
211             ($Dd,$Dh,$Dm,$Ds) =
212             Normalize_DHMS($Dd,$Dh,$Dm,$Ds);
213
214         Add_Delta_Days
215             ($year,$month,$day) =
216             Add_Delta_Days($year,$month,$day,
217                            $Dd);
218
219         Add_Delta_DHMS
220             ($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec) =
221             Add_Delta_DHMS($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec,
222                            $Dd,$Dh,$Dm,$Ds);
223
224         Add_Delta_YM
225             ($year,$month,$day) =
226             Add_Delta_YM($year,$month,$day,
227                          $Dy,$Dm);
228
229         Add_Delta_YMD
230             ($year,$month,$day) =
231             Add_Delta_YMD($year,$month,$day,
232                           $Dy,$Dm,$Dd);
233
234         Add_Delta_YMDHMS
235             ($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec) =
236             Add_Delta_YMDHMS($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec,
237                              $D_y,$D_m,$D_d, $Dh,$Dm,$Ds);
238
239         Add_N_Delta_YMD
240             ($year,$month,$day) =
241             Add_N_Delta_YMD($year,$month,$day,
242                             $Dy,$Dm,$Dd);
243
244         Add_N_Delta_YMDHMS
245             ($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec) =
246             Add_N_Delta_YMDHMS($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec,
247                                $D_y,$D_m,$D_d, $Dhh,$Dmm,$Dss);
248
249         System_Clock
250             ($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec, $doy,$dow,$dst) =
251             System_Clock([$gmt]);
252
253         Today
254             ($year,$month,$day) = Today([$gmt]);
255
256         Now
257             ($hour,$min,$sec) = Now([$gmt]);
258
259         Today_and_Now
260             ($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec) = Today_and_Now([$gmt]);
261
262         This_Year
263             $year = This_Year([$gmt]);
264
265         Gmtime
266             ($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec, $doy,$dow,$dst) =
267             Gmtime([time]);
268
269         Localtime
270             ($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec, $doy,$dow,$dst) =
271             Localtime([time]);
272
273         Mktime
274             $time = Mktime($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec);
275
276         Timezone
277             ($D_y,$D_m,$D_d, $Dh,$Dm,$Ds, $dst) = Timezone([time]);
278
279         Date_to_Time
280             $time = Date_to_Time($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec);
281
282         Time_to_Date
283             ($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec) = Time_to_Date([time]);
284
285         Easter_Sunday
286             ($year,$month,$day) = Easter_Sunday($year);
287
288         Decode_Month
289             if ($month = Decode_Month($string[,$lang]))
290
291         Decode_Day_of_Week
292             if ($dow = Decode_Day_of_Week($string[,$lang]))
293
294         Decode_Language
295             if ($lang = Decode_Language($string))
296
297         Decode_Date_EU
298             if (($year,$month,$day) = Decode_Date_EU($string[,$lang]))
299
300         Decode_Date_US
301             if (($year,$month,$day) = Decode_Date_US($string[,$lang]))
302
303         Fixed_Window
304             $year = Fixed_Window($yy);
305
306         Moving_Window
307             $year = Moving_Window($yy);
308
309         Compress
310             $date = Compress($year,$month,$day);
311
312         Uncompress
313             if (($century,$year,$month,$day) = Uncompress($date))
314
315         check_compressed
316             if (check_compressed($date))
317
318         Compressed_to_Text
319             $string = Compressed_to_Text($date[,$lang]);
320
321         Date_to_Text
322             $string = Date_to_Text($year,$month,$day[,$lang]);
323
324         Date_to_Text_Long
325             $string = Date_to_Text_Long($year,$month,$day[,$lang]);
326
327         English_Ordinal
328             $string = English_Ordinal($number);
329
330         Calendar
331             $string = Calendar($year,$month[,$orthodox[,$lang]]);
332
333         Month_to_Text
334             $string = Month_to_Text($month[,$lang]);
335
336         Day_of_Week_to_Text
337             $string = Day_of_Week_to_Text($dow[,$lang]);
338
339         Day_of_Week_Abbreviation
340             $string = Day_of_Week_Abbreviation($dow[,$lang]);
341
342         Language_to_Text
343             $string = Language_to_Text($lang);
344
345         Language
346             $lang = Language();
347             Language($lang);               # DEPRECATED
348             $oldlang = Language($newlang); # DEPRECATED
349
350         Languages
351             $max_lang = Languages();
352
353         Decode_Date_EU2
354             if (($year,$month,$day) = Decode_Date_EU2($string[,$lang]))
355
356         Decode_Date_US2
357             if (($year,$month,$day) = Decode_Date_US2($string[,$lang]))
358
359         Parse_Date
360             if (($year,$month,$day) = Parse_Date($string[,$lang]))
361
362         ISO_LC
363             $lower = ISO_LC($string);
364
365         ISO_UC
366             $upper = ISO_UC($string);
367
368         Version
369             $string = Date::Calc::Version();
370

IMPORTANT NOTES

372       (See the section "RECIPES" at the bottom of this document for solutions
373       to common problems!)
374
375       · "Year 2000" ("Y2K") compliance
376
377         The upper limit for any year number in this module is only given by
378         the size of the largest positive integer that can be represented in a
379         variable of the C type "int" on your system, which is at least 32767,
380         according to the ANSI C standard (exceptions see below).
381
382         In order to simplify calculations, this module projects the gregorian
383         calendar back until the year 1 A.D. -- i.e., back BEYOND the year
384         1582 when this calendar was first decreed by the Catholic Pope
385         Gregory XIII!
386
387         Therefore, BE SURE TO ALWAYS SPECIFY "1998" WHEN YOU MEAN "1998", for
388         instance, and DO NOT WRITE "98" INSTEAD, because this will in fact
389         perform a calculation based on the year "98" A.D. and NOT "1998"!
390
391         An exception from this rule are the functions which contain the word
392         "compress" in their names (which can only handle years between 1970
393         and 2069 and also accept the abbreviations "00" to "99"), and the
394         functions whose names begin with "Decode_Date_" (which translate year
395         numbers below 100 using a technique known as "moving window").
396
397         If you want to convert a two-digit year number into a full-fledged,
398         four-digit (at least for some years to come ";-)") year number, use
399         the two functions "Fixed_Window()" and "Moving_Window()" (see their
400         description further below).
401
402         Note also that the following import/export functions (which are
403         interfaces to the POSIX functions "time()", "gmtime()", "localtime()"
404         and "mktime()" or (the last two) substitutes for the BSD function
405         "timegm()" and the POSIX function "gmtime()") have a very limited
406         range of representable dates (in contrast to all other functions in
407         this package, which cover virtually any date including and after
408         January 1st 1 A.D.):
409
410                       System_Clock()
411                       Today()
412                       Now()
413                       Today_and_Now()
414                       This_Year()
415                       Gmtime()
416                       Localtime()
417                       Mktime()
418                       Timezone()
419                       Date_to_Time()
420                       Time_to_Date()
421
422         These functions can only deal with dates in the range from
423         01-Jan-1970 00:00:00 GMT to 19-Jan-2038 03:14:07 GMT (the latter
424         limit is only authoritative on 32 bit systems, however, and can (in
425         principle, through a few code changes) be extended somewhat ":-)" on
426         64 bit systems).
427
428         On MacOS Classic, the valid range of dates is between (both included)
429         01-Jan-1904 00:00:00 (local time) to 06-Feb-2040 06:28:15 (local
430         time).
431
432         Note further that the function "Easter_Sunday()" can only be used for
433         years in the range 1583 to 2299.
434
435       · POSIX functions
436
437         Note that the following functions
438
439                       Gmtime()
440                       Localtime()
441                       Mktime()
442                       Timezone()
443
444         are actually wrappers around or based upon the corresponding POSIX
445         functions "time()", "gmtime()", "localtime()" and "mktime()".
446
447         As such, they depend on local settings of the underlying machine such
448         as e.g. the system clock, the time zone and the locale.
449
450         Their results can therefore sometimes be unexpected or counter-
451         intuitive.
452
453         Therefore, no support can be provided for these functions.
454
455         They are supplied "as is", purely for the sake of interoperability.
456
457         Use at your own risk. (You have been warned!)
458
459       · First index
460
461         ALL ranges in this module start with "1", NOT "0"!
462
463         I.e., the day of month, day of week, day of year, month of year, week
464         of year, first valid year number and language ALL start counting at
465         one, NOT zero!
466
467         The only exception is the function ""Week_Number()"", which may in
468         fact return "0" when the given date actually lies in the last week of
469         the PREVIOUS year, and of course the numbers for hours (0..23),
470         minutes (0..59) and seconds (0..59).
471
472       · Function naming conventions
473
474         Function names completely in lower case indicate a boolean return
475         value.
476
477       · Boolean values
478
479         Boolean values returned from functions in this module are always a
480         numeric zero ("0") for "false" and a numeric one ("1") for "true".
481
482       · Exception handling
483
484         The functions in this module will usually die with a corresponding
485         error message if their input parameters, intermediate results or
486         output values are out of range.
487
488         The following functions handle errors differently:
489
490           -  check_date()
491           -  check_time()
492           -  check_business_date()
493           -  check_compressed()
494
495         (which return a "false" return value when the given input does not
496         represent a valid date or time),
497
498           -  Nth_Weekday_of_Month_Year()
499
500         (which returns an empty list if the requested 5th day of week does
501         not exist),
502
503           -  Decode_Month()
504           -  Decode_Day_of_Week()
505           -  Decode_Language()
506           -  Fixed_Window()
507           -  Moving_Window()
508           -  Compress()
509
510         (which return "0" upon failure or invalid input), and
511
512           -  Decode_Date_EU()
513           -  Decode_Date_US()
514           -  Decode_Date_EU2()
515           -  Decode_Date_US2()
516           -  Parse_Date()
517           -  Uncompress()
518
519         (which return an empty list upon failure or invalid input).
520
521         Note that you can always catch an exception thrown by any of the
522         functions in this module and handle it yourself by enclosing the
523         function call in an ""eval"" with curly brackets and checking the
524         special variable "$@" (see "eval" in perlfunc(1) for details).
525

DESCRIPTION

527       · "use Date::Calc qw( Days_in_Year Days_in_Month ... );"
528
529       · "use Date::Calc qw(:all);"
530
531         You can either specify the functions you want to import explicitly by
532         enumerating them between the parentheses of the ""qw()"" operator, or
533         you can use the "":all"" tag instead to import ALL available
534         functions.
535
536       · "$days = Days_in_Year($year,$month);"
537
538         This function returns the sum of the number of days in the months
539         starting with January up to and including "$month" in the given year
540         "$year".
541
542         I.e., ""Days_in_Year(1998,1)"" returns "31", ""Days_in_Year(1998,2)""
543         returns "59", ""Days_in_Year(1998,3)"" returns "90", and so on.
544
545         Note that ""Days_in_Year($year,12)"" returns the number of days in
546         the given year "$year", i.e., either "365" or "366".
547
548       · "$days = Days_in_Month($year,$month);"
549
550         This function returns the number of days in the given month "$month"
551         of the given year "$year".
552
553         The year must always be supplied, even though it is only needed when
554         the month is February, in order to determine whether it is a leap
555         year or not.
556
557         I.e., ""Days_in_Month(1998,1)"" returns "31",
558         ""Days_in_Month(1998,2)"" returns "28", ""Days_in_Month(2000,2)""
559         returns "29", ""Days_in_Month(1998,3)"" returns "31", and so on.
560
561       · "$weeks = Weeks_in_Year($year);"
562
563         This function returns the number of weeks in the given year "$year",
564         i.e., either "52" or "53".
565
566       · "if (leap_year($year))"
567
568         This function returns "true" ("1") if the given year "$year" is a
569         leap year and "false" ("0") otherwise.
570
571       · "if (check_date($year,$month,$day))"
572
573         This function returns "true" ("1") if the given three numerical
574         values "$year", "$month" and "$day" constitute a valid date, and
575         "false" ("0") otherwise.
576
577       · "if (check_time($hour,$min,$sec))"
578
579         This function returns "true" ("1") if the given three numerical
580         values "$hour", "$min" and "$sec" constitute a valid time ("0 <=
581         $hour < 24", "0 <= $min < 60" and "0 <= $sec < 60"), and "false"
582         ("0") otherwise.
583
584       · "if (check_business_date($year,$week,$dow))"
585
586         This function returns "true" ("1") if the given three numerical
587         values "$year", "$week" and "$dow" constitute a valid date in
588         business format, and "false" ("0") otherwise.
589
590         Beware that this function does NOT compute whether a given date is a
591         business day (i.e., Monday to Friday)!
592
593         To do so, use ""(Day_of_Week($year,$month,$day) < 6)"" instead.
594
595       · "$doy = Day_of_Year($year,$month,$day);"
596
597         This function returns the (relative) number of the day of the given
598         date in the given year.
599
600         E.g., ""Day_of_Year($year,1,1)"" returns "1",
601         ""Day_of_Year($year,2,1)"" returns "32", and
602         ""Day_of_Year($year,12,31)"" returns either "365" or "366".
603
604         The day of year is sometimes also referred to as the Julian day (or
605         date), although it has nothing to do with the Julian calendar, the
606         calendar which was used before the Gregorian calendar.
607
608         In order to convert the number returned by this function back into a
609         date, use the function ""Add_Delta_Days()"" (described further
610         below), as follows:
611
612           $doy = Day_of_Year($year,$month,$day);
613           ($year,$month,$day) = Add_Delta_Days($year,1,1, $doy - 1);
614
615       · "$days = Date_to_Days($year,$month,$day);"
616
617         This function returns the (absolute) number of the day of the given
618         date, where counting starts at the 1st of January of the year 1 A.D.
619
620         I.e., ""Date_to_Days(1,1,1)"" returns "1", ""Date_to_Days(1,12,31)""
621         returns "365", ""Date_to_Days(2,1,1)"" returns "366",
622         ""Date_to_Days(1998,5,1)"" returns "729510", and so on.
623
624         This is sometimes also referred to (not quite correctly) as the
625         Julian date (or day). This may cause confusion, because also the
626         number of the day in a year (from 1 to 365 or 366) is frequently
627         called the "Julian day".
628
629         More confusing still, this has nothing to do with the Julian
630         calendar, which was used BEFORE the Gregorian calendar.
631
632         The Julian calendar was named after famous Julius Caesar, who had
633         instituted it in Roman times. The Julian calendar is less precise
634         than the Gregorian calendar because it has too many leap years
635         compared to the true mean length of a year (but the Gregorian
636         calendar also still has one day too much every 5000 years). Anyway,
637         the Julian calendar was better than what existed before, because
638         rulers had often changed the calendar used until then in arbitrary
639         ways, in order to lengthen their own reign, for instance.
640
641         In order to convert the number returned by this function back into a
642         date, use the function ""Add_Delta_Days()"" (described further
643         below), as follows:
644
645           $days = Date_to_Days($year,$month,$day);
646           ($year,$month,$day) = Add_Delta_Days(1,1,1, $days - 1);
647
648       · "$dow = Day_of_Week($year,$month,$day);"
649
650         This function returns the number of the day of week of the given
651         date.
652
653         The function returns "1" for Monday, "2" for Tuesday and so on until
654         "7" for Sunday.
655
656         Note that in the Hebrew calendar (on which the Christian calendar is
657         based), the week starts with Sunday and ends with the Sabbath or
658         Saturday (where according to the Genesis (as described in the Bible)
659         the Lord rested from creating the world).
660
661         In medieval times, Catholic Popes have decreed the Sunday to be the
662         official day of rest, in order to dissociate the Christian from the
663         Hebrew belief.
664
665         It appears that this actually happened with the Emperor Constantin,
666         who converted to Christianity but still worshipped the Sun god and
667         therefore moved the Christian sabbath to the day of the Sun.
668
669         Nowadays, the Sunday AND the Saturday are commonly considered (and
670         used as) days of rest, usually referred to as the "week-end".
671
672         Consistent with this practice, current norms and standards (such as
673         ISO/R 2015-1971, DIN 1355 and ISO 8601) define the Monday as the
674         first day of the week.
675
676       · "$week = Week_Number($year,$month,$day);"
677
678         This function returns the number of the week the given date lies in.
679
680         If the given date lies in the LAST week of the PREVIOUS year, "0" is
681         returned.
682
683         If the given date lies in the FIRST week of the NEXT year,
684         ""Weeks_in_Year($year) + 1"" is returned.
685
686       · "($week,$year) = Week_of_Year($year,$month,$day);"
687
688         This function returns the number of the week the given date lies in,
689         as well as the year that week belongs to.
690
691         I.e., if the given date lies in the LAST week of the PREVIOUS year,
692         ""(Weeks_in_Year($year-1), $year-1)"" is returned.
693
694         If the given date lies in the FIRST week of the NEXT year, ""(1,
695         $year+1)"" is returned.
696
697         Otherwise, ""(Week_Number($year,$month,$day), $year)"" is returned.
698
699       · "$week = Week_of_Year($year,$month,$day);"
700
701         In scalar context, this function returns just the week number. This
702         allows you to write ""$week = Week_of_Year($year,$month,$day);""
703         instead of ""($week) = Week_of_Year($year,$month,$day);"" (note the
704         parentheses around "$week").
705
706         If the given date lies in the LAST week of the PREVIOUS year,
707         ""Weeks_in_Year($year-1)"" is returned.
708
709         If the given date lies in the FIRST week of the NEXT year, "1" is
710         returned.
711
712         Otherwise the return value is identical with that of
713         ""Week_Number($year,$month,$day)"".
714
715         BEWARE that using this function in scalar context is a DANGEROUS
716         feature, because without knowing which year the week belongs to, you
717         might inadvertently assume the wrong one!
718
719         If for instance you are iterating through an interval of dates, you
720         might assume that the week always belongs to the same year as the
721         given date, which unfortunately is WRONG in some cases!
722
723         In many years, the 31st of December for instance belongs to week
724         number one of the FOLLOWING year. Assuming that the year is the same
725         as your date (31st of December, in this example), sends you back to
726         the first week of the CURRENT year - the Monday of which, by the way,
727         in case of bad luck, might actually lie in the year BEFORE the
728         current year!
729
730         This actually happens in 2002, for example.
731
732         So you always need to provide the correct corresponding year number
733         by other means, keeping track of it yourself.
734
735         In case you do not understand this, never mind, but then simply DO
736         NOT USE this function in scalar context!
737
738       · "($year,$month,$day) = Monday_of_Week($week,$year);"
739
740         This function returns the date of the first day of the given week,
741         i.e., the Monday.
742
743         "$year" must be greater than or equal to "1", and "$week" must lie in
744         the range "1" to ""Weeks_in_Year($year)"".
745
746         Note that you can write ""($year,$month,$day) =
747         Monday_of_Week(Week_of_Year($year,$month,$day));"" in order to
748         calculate the date of the Monday of the same week as the given date.
749
750         If you want to calculate any other day of week in the same week as a
751         given date, use
752
753           @date = Add_Delta_Days(Monday_of_Week(Week_of_Year(@date)),$offset);
754
755         where "$offset = 1" for Tuesday, 2 for Wednesday etc.
756
757       · "if (($year,$month,$day) =
758         Nth_Weekday_of_Month_Year($year,$month,$dow,$n))"
759
760         This function calculates the date of the "$n"th day of week "$dow" in
761         the given month "$month" and year "$year"; such as, for example, the
762         3rd Thursday of a given month and year.
763
764         This can be used to send a notification mail to the members of a
765         group which meets regularly on every 3rd Thursday of a month, for
766         instance.
767
768         (See the section "RECIPES" near the end of this document for a code
769         snippet to actually do so.)
770
771         "$year" must be greater than or equal to "1", "$month" must lie in
772         the range "1" to "12", "$dow" must lie in the range "1" to "7" and
773         "$n" must lie in the range "1" to "5", or a fatal error (with
774         appropriate error message) occurs.
775
776         The function returns an empty list when the 5th of a given day of
777         week does not exist in the given month and year.
778
779       · "($year,$week,$dow) = Standard_to_Business($year,$month,$day);"
780
781         This function converts a given date from standard notation (year,
782         month, day (of month)) to business notation (year, week, day of
783         week).
784
785       · "($year,$month,$day) = Business_to_Standard($year,$week,$dow);"
786
787         This function converts a given date from business notation (year,
788         week, day of week) to standard notation (year, month, day (of
789         month)).
790
791       · "$Dd = Delta_Days($year1,$month1,$day1, $year2,$month2,$day2);"
792
793         This function returns the difference in days between the two given
794         dates.
795
796         The result is positive if the two dates are in chronological order,
797         i.e., if date #1 comes chronologically BEFORE date #2, and negative
798         if the order of the two dates is reversed.
799
800         The result is zero if the two dates are identical.
801
802       · "($Dd,$Dh,$Dm,$Ds) = Delta_DHMS($year1,$month1,$day1,
803         $hour1,$min1,$sec1, $year2,$month2,$day2, $hour2,$min2,$sec2);"
804
805         This function returns the difference in days, hours, minutes and
806         seconds between the two given dates with times.
807
808         All four return values will be positive if the two dates are in
809         chronological order, i.e., if date #1 comes chronologically BEFORE
810         date #2, and negative (in all four return values!) if the order of
811         the two dates is reversed.
812
813         This is so that the two functions ""Delta_DHMS()"" and
814         ""Add_Delta_DHMS()"" (description see further below) are
815         complementary, i.e., mutually inverse:
816
817           Add_Delta_DHMS(@date1,@time1, Delta_DHMS(@date1,@time1, @date2,@time2))
818
819         yields ""(@date2,@time2)"" again, whereas
820
821           Add_Delta_DHMS(@date2,@time2,
822               map(-$_, Delta_DHMS(@date1,@time1, @date2,@time2)))
823
824         yields ""(@date1,@time1)"", and
825
826           Delta_DHMS(@date1,@time1, Add_Delta_DHMS(@date1,@time1, @delta))
827
828         yields "@delta" again.
829
830         The result is zero (in all four return values) if the two dates and
831         times are identical.
832
833       · "($Dy,$Dm,$Dd) = Delta_YMD($year1,$month1,$day1,
834         $year2,$month2,$day2);"
835
836         This function returns the vector
837
838             ( $year2 - $year1, $month2 - $month1, $day2 - $day1 )
839
840         This is called the "one-by-one" semantics.
841
842         Adding the result of this function to the first date always yields
843         the second date again, and adding the negative result (where the
844         signs of all elements of the result vector have been flipped) to the
845         second date gives the first date. See also the description of the
846         function "Add_Delta_YMD()" further below.
847
848         Example:
849
850           (6,2,-30) == Delta_YMD(1996,1,31, 2002,3,1]);
851
852           [1996,1,31] + ( 6, 2,-30) = [2002,3, 1]
853           [2002,3, 1] + (-6,-2, 30) = [1996,1,31]
854
855         An error occurs if any of the two given dates is invalid.
856
857       · "($D_y,$D_m,$D_d, $Dh,$Dm,$Ds) = Delta_YMDHMS($year1,$month1,$day1,
858         $hour1,$min1,$sec1, $year2,$month2,$day2, $hour2,$min2,$sec2);"
859
860         This function is based on the function "Delta_YMD()" above but
861         additionally calculates the time difference. When a carry over from
862         the time difference occurs, the value of "$D_d" is adjusted
863         accordingly, thus giving the correct total date/time difference.
864
865         Arguments are expected to be in chronological order to yield a
866         (usually) positive result.
867
868         In any case, adding the result of this function to the first
869         date/time value ("$year1,$month1,$day1," "$hour1,$min1,$sec1") always
870         gives the second date/time value ("$year2,$month2,$day2,"
871         "$hour2,$min2,$sec2") again, and adding the negative result (with the
872         signs of all elements of the result vector flipped) to the second
873         date/time value gives the first date/time value.
874
875         See the function "Add_Delta_YMDHMS()" further below for adding a
876         date/time value and a date/time difference.
877
878         An error occurs if any of the given two date/time values is invalid.
879
880       · "($Dy,$Dm,$Dd) = N_Delta_YMD($year1,$month1,$day1,
881         $year2,$month2,$day2);"
882
883         This function returns the difference between the two given dates in a
884         more intuitive way (as far as possible - more on that see a bit
885         further below) than the function "Delta_YMD()" described above.
886
887         The "N" which precedes its name is meant to signify "new" or
888         "normalized".
889
890         This function is loosely based on recipe #17 b) (see the section
891         "RECIPES" below near the end of this document).
892
893         However, the code of recipe #17 b) actually does not treat positive
894         and negative values symmetrically and consistently.
895
896         This new routine does.
897
898         The return values of this function are guaranteed to all have the
899         same sign (or to be zero). This is why this function is called
900         "normalized".
901
902         Moreover, the results are guaranteed to be "minimal", in the sense
903         that "|$Dm| < 12" and "|$Dd| < 31" (which is equivalent to $Dm lying
904         in the range "[-11..+11]" and $Dd lying in the range "[-30..+30]").
905
906         When the results are applied (i.e., added) to the first given date in
907         a left-to-right order, the second given date is guaranteed to be
908         obtained, provided that intermediary results are truncated, as done
909         by the function "Add_Delta_YM()" (see further below), i.e., that
910         invalid intermediate dates such as e.g. [2009,2,31] will
911         automatically be transformed into [2009,2,28] (and not "wrapped" into
912         the next month, e.g. to [2009,3,3]).
913
914         This is called the "left-to-right with truncation" semantics.
915
916         Note that reversing the order of the given dates and reversing the
917         sign of each of the result values will not always add up.
918
919         Consider the dates [2008,2,29] and [2009,2,1]: their difference is
920         (0,11,3) ([2008,2,29] plus 11 months is [2009,1,29], which plus 3
921         days is [2009,2,1]), but the difference between [2009,2,1] and
922         [2008,2,29] is (0,-11,-1), and not (0,-11,-3) ([2009,2,1] minus 11
923         months is [2008,3,1], which minus one day is [2008,2,29]).
924
925         Another example: The difference between [1996,2,29] and [1997,2,28]
926         is (1,0,0) (observe the truncation of the invalid date [1997,2,29] to
927         [1997,2,28] here!), whereas the difference between [1997,2,28] and
928         [1996,2,29] is (0,-11,-28) ([1997,2,28] minus 11 months is
929         [1996,3,28], which minus 28 days is not [1996,3,0] but of course
930         [1996,2,29]).
931
932         "Benign" examples such as for instance the difference between
933         [1964,1,3] and [2009,9,10] are completely symmetrical: The difference
934         in this example is (45,8,7), whereas the difference between
935         [2009,9,10] and [1964,1,3] is (-45,-8,-7), as would normally be
936         expected. In this example, the result is also the same as the one
937         returned by "Delta_YMD()".
938
939         All these counter-intuitive effects are due to the fact that months
940         (and due to leap years, also years) do not correspond to a fixed
941         number of days, so the semantics of "plus one month" or "plus one
942         year" are in fact undefined.
943
944         The present function is an attempt to provide a definition which is
945         intuitive most of the time, and at least consistent the rest of the
946         time.
947
948         Other definitions are of course possible, but most often lead to
949         contradictions (e.g., the results and the given first date do not add
950         up to the second given date).
951
952         See the file "datecalc.pl" in the "examples" subdirectory of this
953         distribution for a way to play around with this function, or go to
954         http://www.engelschall.com/u/sb/datecalc/ for the online version.
955
956         An error occurs if any of the two given dates is invalid, or if any
957         intermediate result leads to an invalid date (this does not apply to
958         truncation, however, as explained above).
959
960       · "($D_y,$D_m,$D_d, $Dhh,$Dmm,$Dss) =
961         N_Delta_YMDHMS($year1,$month1,$day1, $hour1,$min1,$sec1,
962         $year2,$month2,$day2, $hour2,$min2,$sec2);"
963
964         This function essentially does the same as the function
965         "N_Delta_YMD()" described immediately above, except that also the
966         difference in hours, minutes and seconds is taken into account.
967
968         This function is loosely based on recipe #17 a) (see the section
969         "RECIPES" below near the end of this document).
970
971         However, the code of recipe #17 a) actually does not treat positive
972         and negative values symmetrically and consistently.
973
974         This new routine does.
975
976         The return values of this function (including the time differences)
977         are guaranteed to all have the same sign (or to be zero). This is the
978         reason for the "N" that precedes the name of this function, which is
979         intended to mean "normalized" (or "new").
980
981         Moreover, the results are guaranteed to be "minimal", in the sense
982         that "|$D_m| < 12", "|$D_d| < 31", "|$Dhh| < 24", "|$Dmm| < 60" and
983         "|$Dss| < 60" (which is equivalent to $D_m lying in the range
984         "[-11..+11]", $D_d lying in the range "[-30..+30]", $Dhh lying in the
985         range "[-23..+23]", and $Dmm and $Dss both lying in the range
986         "[-59..+59]").
987
988       · "($Dd,$Dh,$Dm,$Ds) = Normalize_DHMS($Dd,$Dh,$Dm,$Ds);"
989
990         This function takes four arbitrary values for days, hours, minutes
991         and seconds (which may have different signs) and renormalizes them so
992         that the values for hours, minutes and seconds will lie in the ranges
993         "[-23..23]", "[-59..59]" and "[-59..59]", respectively, and so that
994         all four values have the same sign (or are zero).
995
996         The given values are left untouched, i.e., unchanged.
997
998       · "($year,$month,$day) = Add_Delta_Days($year,$month,$day, $Dd);"
999
1000         This function has two principal uses:
1001
1002         First, it can be used to calculate a new date, given an initial date
1003         and an offset (which may be positive or negative) in days, in order
1004         to answer questions like "today plus 90 days -- which date gives
1005         that?".
1006
1007         (In order to add a weeks offset, simply multiply the weeks offset
1008         with "7" and use that as your days offset.)
1009
1010         Second, it can be used to convert the canonical representation of a
1011         date, i.e., the number of that day (where counting starts at the 1st
1012         of January in 1 A.D.), back into a date given as year, month and
1013         day.
1014
1015         Because counting starts at "1", you will actually have to subtract
1016         "1" from the canonical date in order to get back the original date:
1017
1018           $canonical = Date_to_Days($year,$month,$day);
1019
1020           ($year,$month,$day) = Add_Delta_Days(1,1,1, $canonical - 1);
1021
1022         Moreover, this function is the inverse of the function
1023         ""Delta_Days()"":
1024
1025           Add_Delta_Days(@date1, Delta_Days(@date1, @date2))
1026
1027         yields "@date2" again, whereas
1028
1029           Add_Delta_Days(@date2, -Delta_Days(@date1, @date2))
1030
1031         yields "@date1", and
1032
1033           Delta_Days(@date1, Add_Delta_Days(@date1, $delta))
1034
1035         yields "$delta" again.
1036
1037       · "($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec) =
1038         Add_Delta_DHMS($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec, $Dd,$Dh,$Dm,$Ds);"
1039
1040         This function serves to add a days, hours, minutes and seconds offset
1041         to a given date and time, in order to answer questions like "today
1042         and now plus 7 days but minus 5 hours and then plus 30 minutes, what
1043         date and time gives that?":
1044
1045           ($y,$m,$d,$H,$M,$S) = Add_Delta_DHMS(Today_and_Now(), +7,-5,+30,0);
1046
1047       · "($year,$month,$day) = Add_Delta_YM($year,$month,$day, $Dy,$Dm);"
1048
1049         This function can be used to add a year and/or month offset to a
1050         given date.
1051
1052         In contrast to the function described immediately below
1053         (""Add_Delta_YMD()""), this function does no "wrapping" into the next
1054         month if the day happens to lie outside the valid range for the
1055         resulting year and month (after adding the year and month offsets).
1056         Instead, it simply truncates the day to the last possible day of the
1057         resulting month.
1058
1059         Examples:
1060
1061         Adding an offset of 0 years, 1 month to the date [1999,1,31] would
1062         result in the (invalid) date [1999,2,31]. The function replaces this
1063         result by the (valid) date [1999,2,28].
1064
1065         Adding an offset of 1 year, 1 month to the same date [1999,1,31] as
1066         above would result in the (still invalid) date [2000,2,31]. The
1067         function replaces this result by the valid date [2000,2,29] (because
1068         2000 is a leap year).
1069
1070         Note that the year and month offsets can be negative, and that they
1071         can have different signs.
1072
1073         If you want to additionally add a days offset, use the function
1074         ""Add_Delta_Days()"" before or after calling ""Add_Delta_YM()"":
1075
1076           @date2 = Add_Delta_Days( Add_Delta_YM(@date1, $Dy,$Dm), $Dd );
1077           @date2 = Add_Delta_YM( Add_Delta_Days(@date1, $Dd), $Dy,$Dm );
1078
1079         Note that your result may depend on the order in which you call these
1080         two functions!
1081
1082         Consider the date [1999,2,28] and the offsets 0 years, 1 month and 1
1083         day:
1084
1085         [1999,2,28] plus one month is [1999,3,28], plus one day is
1086         [1999,3,29]. [1999,2,28] plus one day is [1999,3,1], plus one month
1087         is [1999,4,1].
1088
1089         (Which is also the reason why the ""Add_Delta_YM()"" function does
1090         not allow to add a days offset, because this would actually require
1091         TWO functions: One for adding the days offset BEFORE and one for
1092         adding it AFTER applying the year/month offsets.)
1093
1094         An error occurs if the initial date is not valid.
1095
1096         Note that ""Add_Delta_YM( Add_Delta_YM(@date, $Dy,$Dm), -$Dy,-$Dm
1097         );"" will not, in general, return the original date "@date" (consider
1098         the examples given above!).
1099
1100       · "($year,$month,$day) = Add_Delta_YMD($year,$month,$day,
1101         $Dy,$Dm,$Dd);"
1102
1103         This function serves to add a years, months and days offset to a
1104         given date.
1105
1106         (In order to add a weeks offset, simply multiply the weeks offset
1107         with "7" and add this number to your days offset.)
1108
1109         Note that the three offsets for years, months and days are applied
1110         independently from each other. This also allows them to have
1111         different signs.
1112
1113         The years and months offsets are applied first, and the days offset
1114         is applied last.
1115
1116         If the resulting date happens to fall on a day after the end of the
1117         resulting month, like the 32nd of April or the 30th of February, then
1118         the date is simply counted forward into the next month (possibly also
1119         into the next year) by the number of excessive days (e.g., the 32nd
1120         of April will become the 2nd of May).
1121
1122         BEWARE that this behaviour differs from that of previous versions of
1123         this module! In previous versions, the day was simply truncated to
1124         the maximum number of days in the resulting month.
1125
1126         If you want the previous behaviour, use the new function
1127         ""Add_Delta_YM()"" (described immediately above) plus the function
1128         ""Add_Delta_Days()"" instead.
1129
1130         BEWARE also that because a year and a month offset is not equivalent
1131         to a fixed number of days, the transformation performed by this
1132         function is NOT ALWAYS REVERSIBLE!
1133
1134         This is in contrast to the functions ""Add_Delta_Days()"" and
1135         ""Add_Delta_DHMS()"", which are fully and truly reversible (with the
1136         help of the functions ""Delta_Days()"" and ""Delta_DHMS()"", for
1137         instance).
1138
1139         Note that for this same reason,
1140
1141           @date = Add_Delta_YMD(
1142                   Add_Delta_YMD(@date, $Dy,$Dm,$Dd), -$Dy,-$Dm,-$Dd);
1143
1144         will in general NOT return the initial date "@date", even though
1145
1146           @date2 = Add_Delta_YMD( @date1, Delta_YMD(@date1, @date2) );
1147
1148         will always return the second date "@date2", and
1149
1150           @date1 = Add_Delta_YMD( @date2, map(-$_, Delta_YMD(@date1, @date2)) );
1151
1152         which is the same as
1153
1154           @date1 = Add_Delta_YMD( @date2, Delta_YMD(@date2, @date1) );
1155
1156         will always return the first date "@date1".
1157
1158         Examples:
1159
1160           [1996,1,31] + ( 6, 1,-2) = [2002,3,1]
1161           [2002,3, 1] + (-6,-1, 2) = [1996,2,3] # EXPECTED: [1996,1,31]
1162
1163           (6,2,-30) == Delta_YMD(1996,1,31, 2002,3,1);
1164
1165           [1996,1,31] + ( 6, 2,-30) = [2002,3, 1]
1166           [2002,3, 1] + (-6,-2, 30) = [1996,1,31] # OK
1167
1168           (6,1,-2) == Delta_YMD(1996,2,3, 2002,3,1);
1169
1170           [1996,2,3] + ( 6, 1,-2) = [2002,3,1]
1171           [2002,3,1] + (-6,-1, 2) = [1996,2,3] # OK
1172
1173         Note that this is NOT a program bug but NECESSARILY so, because of
1174         the variable lengths of years and months, and hence because of the
1175         ambiguity of the difference between two dates in terms of years,
1176         months and days, i.e., the fact that the difference between two dates
1177         can be expressed in more than one way:
1178
1179           [1996,1,31] + (6,1, -2) = [2002,3,1]
1180           [1996,1,31] + (6,2,-30) = [2002,3,1]
1181
1182       · "($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec) =
1183         Add_Delta_YMDHMS($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec, $D_y,$D_m,$D_d,
1184         $Dh,$Dm,$Ds);"
1185
1186         Same as the function above, except that a time offset may be given in
1187         addition to the year, month and day offset.
1188
1189       · "($year,$month,$day) = Add_N_Delta_YMD($year,$month,$day,
1190         $Dy,$Dm,$Dd);"
1191
1192         This function is actually a shortcut for applying the function
1193         "Add_Delta_YM()" first, followed by the function "Add_Delta_Days()",
1194         i.e., this function does exactly the same as
1195
1196          ($year,$month,$day) = Add_Delta_Days( Add_Delta_YM($year,$month,$day,$Dy,$Dm), $Dd );
1197
1198         Beware that, if necessary, the function "Add_Delta_YM()" truncates
1199         the resulting day of the month to the largest allowable value for
1200         that month, i.e., the (invalid) result [2009,2,31] is automatically
1201         transformed into [2009,2,28].
1202
1203         For more details on this truncation, see the description of the
1204         function "Add_Delta_YM()" further above.
1205
1206         This function is meant to be complementary with the function
1207         "N_Delta_YMD()" described further above.
1208
1209         This means that it is guaranteed that the result returned by
1210
1211           Add_N_Delta_YMD( @date1, N_Delta_YMD(@date1, @date2) );
1212
1213         is always identical with the given date "@date2".
1214
1215         Note however that unlike with function "Add_Delta_YMD()", the reverse
1216         is not true here, i.e.,
1217
1218           ($Dy,$Dm,$Dd) = N_Delta_YMD(@date1,@date2);
1219           @date = Add_N_Delta_YMD(@date2, -$Dy,-$Dm,-$Dd);
1220
1221         will NOT always return the initial date "@date1".
1222
1223         Example:
1224
1225           (0,11,3) == N_Delta_YMD(2008,2,29, 2009,2,1);
1226
1227           [2008,2,29] + (0, 11, 3) = [2009,2, 1]
1228           [2009,2, 1] + (0,-11,-3) = [2008,2,27] # EXPECTED: [2008,2,29]
1229
1230       · "($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec) =
1231         Add_N_Delta_YMDHMS($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec,
1232         $D_y,$D_m,$D_d, $Dhh,$Dmm,$Dss);"
1233
1234         This function essentially does the same as the function
1235         "Add_N_Delta_YMD()" described immediately above, except that also the
1236         difference in hours, minutes and seconds is taken into account.
1237
1238       · "($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec, $doy,$dow,$dst) =
1239         System_Clock([$gmt]);"
1240
1241         If your operating system supports the corresponding system calls
1242         (""time()"" and ""localtime()"" or ""gmtime()""), this function will
1243         return the information provided by your system clock, i.e., the
1244         current date and time, the number of the day of year, the number of
1245         the day of week and a flag signaling whether daylight savings time is
1246         currently in effect or not.
1247
1248         The ranges of values returned (and their meanings) are as follows:
1249
1250                 $year   :   1970..2038 (or more)  [Unix etc.]
1251                 $year   :   1904..2040            [MacOS Classic]
1252
1253                 $month  :   1..12
1254                 $day    :   1..31
1255                 $hour   :   0..23
1256                 $min    :   0..59
1257                 $sec    :   0..59    (0..61 on some systems)
1258                 $doy    :   1..366
1259                 $dow    :   1..7
1260                 $dst    :  -1..1
1261
1262         "$doy" is the day of year, sometimes also referred to as the "julian
1263         date", which starts at "1" and goes up to the number of days in that
1264         year.
1265
1266         The day of week ("$dow") will be "1" for Monday, "2" for Tuesday and
1267         so on until "7" for Sunday.
1268
1269         The daylight savings time flag ("$dst") will be ""-1"" if this
1270         information is not available on your system, "0" for no daylight
1271         savings time (i.e., winter time) and "1" when daylight savings time
1272         is in effect.
1273
1274         If your operating system does not provide the necessary system calls,
1275         calling this function will result in a fatal "not available on this
1276         system" error message.
1277
1278         If you want to handle this exception yourself, use ""eval"" as
1279         follows:
1280
1281           eval { ($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec, $doy,$dow,$dst) =
1282             System_Clock(); };
1283
1284           if ($@)
1285           {
1286               # Handle missing system clock
1287               # (For instance, ask user to enter this information manually)
1288           }
1289
1290         Note that curlies ("{" and "}") are used here to delimit the
1291         statement to be "eval"ed (which is the way to catch exceptions in
1292         Perl), and not quotes (which is a way to evaluate Perl expressions at
1293         runtime).
1294
1295         If the optional (boolean) input parameter "$gmt" is given, a "true"
1296         value ("1") will cause ""gmtime()"" to be used instead of
1297         ""localtime()"", internally, thus returning Greenwich Mean Time (GMT,
1298         or UTC) instead of local time.
1299
1300       · "($year,$month,$day) = Today([$gmt]);"
1301
1302         This function returns a subset of the values returned by the function
1303         ""System_Clock()"" (see above for details), namely the current year,
1304         month and day.
1305
1306         A fatal "not available on this system" error message will appear if
1307         the corresponding system calls are not supported by your current
1308         operating system.
1309
1310         If the optional (boolean) input parameter "$gmt" is given, a "true"
1311         value ("1") will cause ""gmtime()"" to be used instead of
1312         ""localtime()"", internally, thus returning Greenwich Mean Time (GMT,
1313         or UTC) instead of local time.
1314
1315       · "($hour,$min,$sec) = Now([$gmt]);"
1316
1317         This function returns a subset of the values returned by the function
1318         ""System_Clock()"" (see above for details), namely the current time
1319         (hours, minutes and full seconds).
1320
1321         A fatal "not available on this system" error message will appear if
1322         the corresponding system calls are not supported by your current
1323         operating system.
1324
1325         If the optional (boolean) input parameter "$gmt" is given, a "true"
1326         value ("1") will cause ""gmtime()"" to be used instead of
1327         ""localtime()"", internally, thus returning Greenwich Mean Time (GMT,
1328         or UTC) instead of local time.
1329
1330       · "($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec) = Today_and_Now([$gmt]);"
1331
1332         This function returns a subset of the values returned by the function
1333         ""System_Clock()"" (see above for details), namely the current date
1334         (year, month, day) and time (hours, minutes and full seconds).
1335
1336         A fatal "not available on this system" error message will appear if
1337         the corresponding system calls are not supported by your current
1338         operating system.
1339
1340         If the optional (boolean) input parameter "$gmt" is given, a "true"
1341         value ("1") will cause ""gmtime()"" to be used instead of
1342         ""localtime()"", internally, thus returning Greenwich Mean Time (GMT,
1343         or UTC) instead of local time.
1344
1345       · "$year = This_Year([$gmt]);"
1346
1347         This function returns the current year, according to local time.
1348
1349         A fatal "not available on this system" error message will appear if
1350         the corresponding system calls are not supported by your current
1351         operating system.
1352
1353         If the optional (boolean) input parameter "$gmt" is given, a "true"
1354         value ("1") will cause ""gmtime()"" to be used instead of
1355         ""localtime()"", internally, thus returning Greenwich Mean Time (GMT,
1356         or UTC) instead of local time. However, this will only make a
1357         difference within a few hours around New Year (unless you are on a
1358         Pacific island, where this can be almost 24 hours).
1359
1360       · "($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec, $doy,$dow,$dst) =
1361         Gmtime([time]);"
1362
1363         This is Date::Calc's equivalent of Perl's built-in "gmtime()"
1364         function.  See also "gmtime" in perlfunc(1).
1365
1366         With the optional argument "time" (i.e., seconds since the epoch),
1367         this function will return the corresponding values for that
1368         particular time (instead of the current time when this parameter is
1369         omitted).
1370
1371         The ranges of values returned (and their meanings) are as follows:
1372
1373                 $year   :   1970..2038 (or more)  [Unix etc.]
1374                 $year   :   1904..2040            [MacOS Classic]
1375
1376                 $month  :   1..12
1377                 $day    :   1..31
1378                 $hour   :   0..23
1379                 $min    :   0..59
1380                 $sec    :   0..59
1381                 $doy    :   1..366
1382                 $dow    :   1..7
1383                 $dst    :  -1..1
1384
1385         "$doy" is the day of year, sometimes also referred to as the "julian
1386         date", which starts at "1" and goes up to the number of days in that
1387         year.
1388
1389         The day of week ("$dow") will be "1" for Monday, "2" for Tuesday and
1390         so on until "7" for Sunday.
1391
1392         The daylight savings time flag ("$dst") will be ""-1"" if this
1393         information is not available on your system, "0" for no daylight
1394         savings time (i.e., winter time) and "1" when daylight savings time
1395         is in effect.
1396
1397         A fatal "time out of range" error will occur if the given time value
1398         is out of range "[0..(~0>>1)]".
1399
1400         If the time value is omitted, the "time()" function is called
1401         instead, internally.
1402
1403       · "($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec, $doy,$dow,$dst) =
1404         Localtime([time]);"
1405
1406         This is Date::Calc's equivalent of Perl's built-in "localtime()"
1407         function.  See also "localtime" in perlfunc(1).
1408
1409         The ranges of values returned (and their meanings) are as follows:
1410
1411                 $year   :   1970..2038 (or more)  [Unix etc.]
1412                 $year   :   1904..2040            [MacOS Classic]
1413
1414                 $month  :   1..12
1415                 $day    :   1..31
1416                 $hour   :   0..23
1417                 $min    :   0..59
1418                 $sec    :   0..59
1419                 $doy    :   1..366
1420                 $dow    :   1..7
1421                 $dst    :  -1..1
1422
1423         "$doy" is the day of year, sometimes also referred to as the "julian
1424         date", which starts at "1" and goes up to the number of days in that
1425         year.
1426
1427         The day of week ("$dow") will be "1" for Monday, "2" for Tuesday and
1428         so on until "7" for Sunday.
1429
1430         The daylight savings time flag ("$dst") will be ""-1"" if this
1431         information is not available on your system, "0" for no daylight
1432         savings time (i.e., winter time) and "1" when daylight savings time
1433         is in effect.
1434
1435         A fatal "time out of range" error will occur if the given time value
1436         is out of range "[0..(~0>>1)]".
1437
1438         If the time value is omitted, the "time()" function is called
1439         instead, internally.
1440
1441       · "$time = Mktime($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec);"
1442
1443         This function converts a date into a time value, i.e., into the
1444         number of seconds since whatever moment in time your system considers
1445         to be the "epoch". On Unix and most other systems this is the number
1446         of seconds since January 1st 1970 at midnight (GMT). On MacOS Classic
1447         this is the number of seconds since January 1st 1904 at midnight
1448         (local time).
1449
1450         The function is similar to the "POSIX::mktime()" function (see
1451         "mktime" in POSIX(1) for more details), but in contrast to the
1452         latter, it expects dates in the usual ranges used throughout this
1453         module: The year 2001 stays year 2001, and months are numbered from 1
1454         to 12.
1455
1456         A fatal "date out of range" error will occur if the given date cannot
1457         be expressed in terms of seconds since the epoch (this happens for
1458         instance when the date lies before the epoch, or if it is later than
1459         19-Jan-2038 03:14:07 GMT on 32 bit Unix systems, or later than
1460         06-Feb-2040 06:28:15 (local time) on a Macintosh with MacOS
1461         Classic).
1462
1463         Just like the "POSIX::mktime()" function, this function uses the
1464         "mktime()" system call, internally.
1465
1466         This means that the given date and time is considered to be in local
1467         time, and that the value returned by this function will depend on
1468         your machine's local settings such as the time zone, whether daylight
1469         savings time is (or was, at the time) in effect, and the system clock
1470         itself.
1471
1472         BEWARE that "mktime()" does not always return the same time value as
1473         fed into "localtime()", when you feed the output of "localtime()"
1474         back into "mktime()", on some systems!
1475
1476         I.e., ""Mktime((Localtime($time))[0..5])"" will not always return the
1477         same value as given in "$time"!
1478
1479       · "($D_y,$D_m,$D_d, $Dh,$Dm,$Ds, $dst) = Timezone([time]);"
1480
1481         This function returns the difference between ""localtime(time)"" and
1482         ""gmtime(time)"", which is the timezone offset in effect for the
1483         current location and the given ""time"".
1484
1485         This offset is positive if you are located to the east of Greenwich,
1486         and is usually negative (except during daylight savings time, in some
1487         locations) if you are located to the west of Greenwich.
1488
1489         Note that this offset is influenced by all of the relevant system
1490         settings and parameters on your machine; such as locales, environment
1491         variables (e.g. ""TZ"") and the system clock itself. See the relevant
1492         documentation on your system for more details.
1493
1494         If the ""time"" is omitted, the ""time()"" function will be called
1495         automatically, internally (similar to the built-in functions
1496         ""localtime()"" and ""gmtime()"" in Perl).
1497
1498         A fatal "time out of range" error will occur if the given time value
1499         is out of range "[0..(~0>>1)]".
1500
1501         The last item of the returned list is a flag which indicates whether
1502         daylight savings time is currently in effect. This flag is negative
1503         (-1) if this information is not available on your system. It is zero
1504         (0) when daylight savings time is off, and positive (+1) when
1505         daylight savings time is on.
1506
1507         Thus you can check very quickly whether daylight savings time is
1508         currently in effect by evaluating this function in scalar context (in
1509         scalar context, Perl returns the last item of a list):
1510
1511           if (scalar Timezone > 0) { # yes, daylight savings time
1512
1513         However, a slightly more efficient way would be this:
1514
1515           if (scalar System_Clock > 0) { # yes, daylight savings time
1516
1517       · "$time = Date_to_Time($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec);"
1518
1519         This function is a replacement for the BSD function "timegm()" (which
1520         is not available on all Unix systems), which converts a given date
1521         and time into a time value, i.e., into the number of seconds since
1522         whatever moment in time your system considers to be the "epoch". On
1523         Unix and most other systems this is the number of seconds since
1524         January 1st 1970 at midnight (GMT). On MacOS Classic this is the
1525         number of seconds since January 1st 1904 at midnight (local time).
1526
1527         Under Unix, the date and time are considered to be in UTC ("Universal
1528         Time Coordinated", and so is the resulting time value.
1529
1530         UTC is almost the same as GMT (or "Greenwich Mean Time"), except that
1531         UTC has leap seconds (in order to account for small variations in the
1532         rotation of the earth, for instance), whereas GMT does not.
1533
1534         Under MacOS Classic, however, both input and output are considered to
1535         be in local time.
1536
1537         The ranges of year and month follow the same rules as throughout the
1538         rest of this module (and not the contorted rules of its Unix
1539         equivalent), i.e., the year "2001" stays "2001" and the month ranges
1540         from 1 to 12.
1541
1542         A fatal "date out of range" error will occur if the given date cannot
1543         be expressed in terms of seconds since the epoch (this happens for
1544         instance when the date lies before the epoch, or if it is later than
1545         19-Jan-2038 03:14:07 GMT on 32 bit Unix systems, or later than
1546         06-Feb-2040 06:28:15 (local time) on a Macintosh with MacOS
1547         Classic).
1548
1549         This function should be very fast, because it is implemented in a
1550         very straightforward manner and doesn't use any internal system
1551         calls.
1552
1553         Moreover, the functions "Date_to_Time()" and "Time_to_Date()" are
1554         guaranteed to be complementary, i.e., that
1555         ""Date_to_Time(Time_to_Date($time))"" and
1556         ""Time_to_Date(Date_to_Time($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec))""
1557         will always return the initial values.
1558
1559       · "($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec) = Time_to_Date([time]);"
1560
1561         This function is an alternative to the POSIX "gmtime()" function (and
1562         its built-in Perl equivalent), which converts a given time value into
1563         the corresponding date and time. The given time value must be the
1564         number of seconds since whatever moment in time your system considers
1565         to be the "epoch". On Unix and most other systems this is the number
1566         of seconds since January 1st 1970 at midnight (GMT). On MacOS Classic
1567         this is the number of seconds since January 1st 1904 at midnight
1568         (local time).
1569
1570         Under Unix, the given time value is considered to be in UTC
1571         ("Universal Time Coordinated", and so is the resulting date and time.
1572
1573         UTC is almost the same as GMT (or "Greenwich Mean Time"), except that
1574         UTC has leap seconds (in order to account for small variations in the
1575         rotation of the earth, for instance), whereas GMT does not.
1576
1577         Under MacOS Classic, however, both input and output are considered to
1578         be in local time.
1579
1580         If the input value ""time"" is omitted, the ""time()"" function will
1581         be called automatically, internally (similar to the built-in
1582         functions ""localtime()"" and ""gmtime()"" in Perl).
1583
1584         A fatal "time out of range" error will occur if the given time value
1585         is negative.
1586
1587         This function should be very fast, because it is implemented in a
1588         very straightforward manner and doesn't use any internal system calls
1589         (except for "time()", if the input value is omitted).
1590
1591         Moreover, the functions "Date_to_Time()" and "Time_to_Date()" are
1592         guaranteed to be complementary, i.e., that
1593         ""Date_to_Time(Time_to_Date($time))"" and
1594         ""Time_to_Date(Date_to_Time($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec))""
1595         will always return the initial values.
1596
1597       · "($year,$month,$day) = Easter_Sunday($year);"
1598
1599         This function calculates the date of Easter Sunday for all years in
1600         the range from 1583 to 2299 (all other year numbers will result in a
1601         fatal "year out of range" error message) using the method known as
1602         the "Gaussian Rule".
1603
1604         Some related christian feast days which depend on the date of Easter
1605         Sunday:
1606
1607           Carnival Monday / Rosenmontag / Veille du Mardi Gras   =  -48 days
1608           Mardi Gras / Karnevalsdienstag / Mardi Gras            =  -47 days
1609           Ash Wednesday / Aschermittwoch / Mercredi des Cendres  =  -46 days
1610           Palm Sunday / Palmsonntag / Dimanche des Rameaux       =   -7 days
1611           Easter Friday / Karfreitag / Vendredi Saint            =   -2 days
1612           Easter Saturday / Ostersamstag / Samedi de Paques      =   -1 day
1613           Easter Monday / Ostermontag / Lundi de Paques          =   +1 day
1614           Ascension of Christ / Christi Himmelfahrt / Ascension  =  +39 days
1615           Whitsunday / Pfingstsonntag / Dimanche de Pentecote    =  +49 days
1616           Whitmonday / Pfingstmontag / Lundi de Pentecote        =  +50 days
1617           Feast of Corpus Christi / Fronleichnam / Fete-Dieu     =  +60 days
1618
1619         Use the offsets shown above to calculate the date of the
1620         corresponding feast day as follows:
1621
1622           ($year,$month,$day) = Add_Delta_Days(Easter_Sunday($year), $offset));
1623
1624       · "if ($month = Decode_Month($string[,$lang]))"
1625
1626         This function takes a string as its argument, which should contain
1627         the name of a month in the given or currently selected language (see
1628         further below for details about the multi-language support of this
1629         package), or any uniquely identifying abbreviation of a month's name
1630         (i.e., the first few letters), and returns the corresponding number
1631         (1..12) upon a successful match, or "0" otherwise (therefore, the
1632         return value can also be used as the conditional expression in an
1633         "if" statement).
1634
1635         Note that the input string may not contain any other characters which
1636         do not pertain to the month's name, especially no leading or trailing
1637         whitespace.
1638
1639         Note also that matching is performed in a case-insensitive manner
1640         (this may depend on the "locale" setting on your current system,
1641         though!)
1642
1643         With "1" ("English") as the given language, the following examples
1644         will all return the value "9":
1645
1646           $month = Decode_Month("s",1);
1647           $month = Decode_Month("Sep",1);
1648           $month = Decode_Month("septemb",1);
1649           $month = Decode_Month("September",1);
1650
1651       · "if ($dow = Decode_Day_of_Week($string[,$lang]))"
1652
1653         This function takes a string as its argument, which should contain
1654         the name of a day of week in the given or currently selected language
1655         (see further below for details about the multi-language support of
1656         this package), or any uniquely identifying abbreviation of the name
1657         of a day of week (i.e., the first few letters), and returns the
1658         corresponding number (1..7) upon a successful match, or "0" otherwise
1659         (therefore, the return value can also be used as the conditional
1660         expression in an "if" statement).
1661
1662         Note that the input string may not contain any other characters which
1663         do not pertain to the name of the day of week, especially no leading
1664         or trailing whitespace.
1665
1666         Note also that matching is performed in a case-insensitive manner
1667         (this may depend on the "locale" setting on your current system,
1668         though!)
1669
1670         With "1" ("English") as the given language, the following examples
1671         will all return the value "3":
1672
1673           $dow = Decode_Day_of_Week("w",1);
1674           $dow = Decode_Day_of_Week("Wed",1);
1675           $dow = Decode_Day_of_Week("wednes",1);
1676           $dow = Decode_Day_of_Week("Wednesday",1);
1677
1678       · "if ($lang = Decode_Language($string))"
1679
1680         This function takes a string as its argument, which should contain
1681         the name of one of the languages supported by this package (IN THIS
1682         VERY LANGUAGE ITSELF), or any uniquely identifying abbreviation of
1683         the name of a language (i.e., the first few letters), and returns its
1684         corresponding internal number (1..14 in the original distribution)
1685         upon a successful match, or "0" otherwise (therefore, the return
1686         value can also be used as the conditional expression in an "if"
1687         statement).
1688
1689         Note that the input string may not contain any other characters which
1690         do not pertain to the name of a language, especially no leading or
1691         trailing whitespace.
1692
1693         Note also that matching is performed in a case-insensitive manner
1694         (this may depend on the "locale" setting on your current system,
1695         though!)
1696
1697         The original distribution supports the following fourteen languages:
1698
1699                     English                    ==>    1    (default)
1700                     Français    (French)       ==>    2
1701                     Deutsch     (German)       ==>    3
1702                     Español     (Spanish)      ==>    4
1703                     Português   (Portuguese)   ==>    5
1704                     Nederlands  (Dutch)        ==>    6
1705                     Italiano    (Italian)      ==>    7
1706                     Norsk       (Norwegian)    ==>    8
1707                     Svenska     (Swedish)      ==>    9
1708                     Dansk       (Danish)       ==>   10
1709                     suomi       (Finnish)      ==>   11
1710                     Magyar      (Hungarian)    ==>   12
1711                     polski      (Polish)       ==>   13
1712                     Romaneste   (Romanian)     ==>   14
1713
1714         See the section "How to install additional languages" in the file
1715         "INSTALL.txt" in this distribution for how to add more languages to
1716         this package.
1717
1718         In the original distribution (no other languages installed), the
1719         following examples will all return the value "3":
1720
1721           $lang = Decode_Language("d");
1722           $lang = Decode_Language("de");
1723           $lang = Decode_Language("Deutsch");
1724
1725         Note that you may not be able to enter the special international
1726         characters in some of the languages' names over the keyboard directly
1727         on some systems.
1728
1729         This should never be a problem, though; just enter an abbreviation of
1730         the name of the language consisting of the first few letters up to
1731         the character before the first special international character.
1732
1733       · "if (($year,$month,$day) = Decode_Date_EU($string[,$lang]))"
1734
1735         This function scans a given string and tries to parse any date which
1736         might be embedded in it.
1737
1738         The function returns an empty list if it can't successfully extract a
1739         valid date from its input string, or else it returns the date found.
1740
1741         The function accepts almost any format, as long as the date is given
1742         in the european order (hence its name) day-month-year.
1743
1744         Thereby, zero or more NON-NUMERIC characters may PRECEDE the day and
1745         FOLLOW the year.
1746
1747         Moreover, zero or more NON-ALPHANUMERIC characters are permitted
1748         BETWEEN these three items (i.e., between day and month and between
1749         month and year).
1750
1751         The month may be given either numerically (i.e., a number from "1" to
1752         "12"), or alphanumerically, i.e., as the name of the month in the
1753         given or currently selected language, or any uniquely identifying
1754         abbreviation thereof.
1755
1756         (See further below for details about the multi-language support of
1757         this package!)
1758
1759         If the year is given as one or two digits only (i.e., if the year is
1760         less than 100), it is mapped to a "window" of +/- 50 years around the
1761         current year, as described by the "Moving_Window()" function (see
1762         further below).
1763
1764         If the day, month and year are all given numerically but WITHOUT any
1765         delimiting characters between them, this string of digits will be
1766         mapped to the day, month and year as follows:
1767
1768                         Length:        Mapping:
1769                           3              dmy
1770                           4              dmyy
1771                           5              dmmyy
1772                           6              ddmmyy
1773                           7              dmmyyyy
1774                           8              ddmmyyyy
1775
1776         (Where "d" stands for "day", "m" stands for "month" and "y" stands
1777         for "year".)
1778
1779         All other strings consisting purely of digits (without any
1780         intervening delimiters) are rejected, i.e., not recognized.
1781
1782         Examples:
1783
1784           "3.1.64"
1785           "3 1 64"
1786           "03.01.64"
1787           "03/01/64"
1788           "3. Jan 1964"
1789           "Birthday: 3. Jan '64 in Backnang/Germany"
1790           "03-Jan-64"
1791           "3.Jan1964"
1792           "3Jan64"
1793           "030164"
1794           "3ja64"
1795           "3164"
1796
1797         Experiment! (See the corresponding example applications in the
1798         "examples" subdirectory of this distribution in order to do so.)
1799
1800       · "if (($year,$month,$day) = Decode_Date_US($string[,$lang]))"
1801
1802         This function scans a given string and tries to parse any date which
1803         might be embedded in it.
1804
1805         The function returns an empty list if it can't successfully extract a
1806         valid date from its input string, or else it returns the date found.
1807
1808         The function accepts almost any format, as long as the date is given
1809         in the U.S. american order (hence its name) month-day-year.
1810
1811         Thereby, zero or more NON-ALPHANUMERIC characters may PRECEDE and
1812         FOLLOW the month (i.e., precede the month and separate it from the
1813         day which follows behind).
1814
1815         Moreover, zero or more NON-NUMERIC characters are permitted BETWEEN
1816         the day and the year, as well as AFTER the year.
1817
1818         The month may be given either numerically (i.e., a number from "1" to
1819         "12"), or alphanumerically, i.e., as the name of the month in the
1820         given or currently selected language, or any uniquely identifying
1821         abbreviation thereof.
1822
1823         (See further below for details about the multi-language support of
1824         this package!)
1825
1826         If the year is given as one or two digits only (i.e., if the year is
1827         less than 100), it is mapped to a "window" of +/- 50 years around the
1828         current year, as described by the "Moving_Window()" function (see
1829         further below).
1830
1831         If the month, day and year are all given numerically but WITHOUT any
1832         delimiting characters between them, this string of digits will be
1833         mapped to the month, day and year as follows:
1834
1835                         Length:        Mapping:
1836                           3              mdy
1837                           4              mdyy
1838                           5              mddyy
1839                           6              mmddyy
1840                           7              mddyyyy
1841                           8              mmddyyyy
1842
1843         (Where "m" stands for "month", "d" stands for "day" and "y" stands
1844         for "year".)
1845
1846         All other strings consisting purely of digits (without any
1847         intervening delimiters) are rejected, i.e., not recognized.
1848
1849         If only the day and the year form a contiguous string of digits, they
1850         will be mapped as follows:
1851
1852                         Length:        Mapping:
1853                           2              dy
1854                           3              dyy
1855                           4              ddyy
1856                           5              dyyyy
1857                           6              ddyyyy
1858
1859         (Where "d" stands for "day" and "y" stands for "year".)
1860
1861         Examples:
1862
1863           "1 3 64"
1864           "01/03/64"
1865           "Jan 3 '64"
1866           "Jan 3 1964"
1867           "===> January 3rd 1964 (birthday)"
1868           "Jan31964"
1869           "Jan364"
1870           "ja364"
1871           "1364"
1872
1873         Experiment! (See the corresponding example applications in the
1874         "examples" subdirectory of this distribution in order to do so.)
1875
1876       · "$year = Fixed_Window($yy);"
1877
1878         This function applies a "fixed window" strategy to two-digit year
1879         numbers in order to convert them into four-digit year numbers.
1880
1881         All other year numbers are passed through unchanged, except for
1882         negative year numbers, which cause the function to return zero ("0")
1883         instead.
1884
1885         Two-digit year numbers ""yy"" below 70 are converted to ""20yy"",
1886         whereas year numbers equal to or greater than 70 (but less than 100)
1887         are converted to ""19yy"".
1888
1889         In the original distribution of this package, the base century is set
1890         to "1900" and the base year to "70" (which is a standard on UNIX
1891         systems), but these constants (also called the "epoch") can actually
1892         be chosen at will (in the files "DateCalc.c" and "DateCalc.h") at
1893         compile time of this module.
1894
1895       · "$year = Moving_Window($yy);"
1896
1897         This function applies a "moving window" strategy to two-digit year
1898         numbers in order to convert them into four-digit year numbers,
1899         provided the necessary system calls (system clock) are available.
1900         Otherwise the function falls back to the "fixed window" strategy
1901         described in the function above.
1902
1903         All other year numbers are passed through unchanged, except for
1904         negative year numbers, which cause the function to return zero ("0")
1905         instead.
1906
1907         Two-digit year numbers are mapped according to a "window" of 50 years
1908         in both directions (past and future) around the current year.
1909
1910         That is, two-digit year numbers are first mapped to the same century
1911         as the current year. If the resulting year is smaller than the
1912         current year minus 50, then one more century is added to the result.
1913         If the resulting year is equal to or greater than the current year
1914         plus 50, then a century is subtracted from the result.
1915
1916       · "$date = Compress($year,$month,$day);"
1917
1918         WARNING: This function is legacy code, its use is deprecated!
1919
1920         This function encodes a date in 16 bits, which is the value being
1921         returned.
1922
1923         The encoding scheme is as follows:
1924
1925                     Bit number:    FEDCBA9 8765 43210
1926                     Contents:      yyyyyyy mmmm ddddd
1927
1928         (Where the "yyyyyyy" contain the number of the year, "mmmm" the
1929         number of the month and "ddddd" the number of the day.)
1930
1931         The function returns "0" if the given input values do not represent a
1932         valid date. Therefore, the return value of this function can also be
1933         used as the conditional expression in an "if" statement, in order to
1934         check whether the given input values constitute a valid date).
1935
1936         Through this special encoding scheme, it is possible to COMPARE
1937         compressed dates for equality and order (less than/greater than)
1938         WITHOUT any previous DECODING!
1939
1940         Note however that contiguous dates do NOT necessarily have contiguous
1941         compressed representations!
1942
1943         I.e., incrementing the compressed representation of a date MAY OR MAY
1944         NOT yield a valid new date!
1945
1946         Note also that this function can only handle dates within one
1947         century.
1948
1949         This century can be chosen at will (at compile time of this module)
1950         by defining a base century and year (also called the "epoch"). In the
1951         original distribution of this package, the base century is set to
1952         "1900" and the base year to "70" (which is standard on UNIX systems).
1953
1954         This allows this function to handle dates from "1970" up to "2069".
1955
1956         If the given year is equal to, say, "95", this package will
1957         automatically assume that you really meant "1995" instead. However,
1958         if you specify a year number which is SMALLER than 70, like "64", for
1959         instance, this package will assume that you really meant "2064".
1960
1961         You are not confined to two-digit (abbreviated) year numbers, though.
1962
1963         The function also accepts "full-length" year numbers, provided that
1964         they lie in the supported range (i.e., from "1970" to "2069", in the
1965         original configuration of this package).
1966
1967         Note that this function is maintained mainly for backward
1968         compatibility, and that its use is not recommended.
1969
1970       · "if (($century,$year,$month,$day) = Uncompress($date))"
1971
1972         WARNING: This function is legacy code, its use is deprecated!
1973
1974         This function decodes dates that were encoded previously using the
1975         function ""Compress()"".
1976
1977         It returns the century, year, month and day of the date encoded in
1978         "$date" if "$date" represents a valid date, or an empty list
1979         otherwise.
1980
1981         The year returned in "$year" is actually a two-digit year number
1982         (i.e., the year number taken modulo 100), and only the expression
1983         ""$century + $year"" yields the "full-length" year number (for
1984         example, "1900 + 95 = 1995").
1985
1986         Note that this function is maintained mainly for backward
1987         compatibility, and that its use is not recommended.
1988
1989       · "if (check_compressed($date))"
1990
1991         WARNING: This function is legacy code, its use is deprecated!
1992
1993         This function returns "true" ("1") if the given input value
1994         constitutes a valid compressed date, and "false" ("0") otherwise.
1995
1996         Note that this function is maintained mainly for backward
1997         compatibility, and that its use is not recommended.
1998
1999       · "$string = Compressed_to_Text($date[,$lang]);"
2000
2001         WARNING: This function is legacy code, its use is deprecated!
2002
2003         This function returns a string of fixed length (always 9 characters
2004         long) containing a textual representation of the compressed date
2005         encoded in "$date".
2006
2007         This string has the form "dd-Mmm-yy", where "dd" is the two-digit
2008         number of the day, "Mmm" are the first three letters of the name of
2009         the month in the given or currently selected language (see further
2010         below for details about the multi-language support of this package),
2011         and "yy" is the two-digit year number (i.e., the year number taken
2012         modulo 100).
2013
2014         If "$date" does not represent a valid date, the string "??-???-??" is
2015         returned instead.
2016
2017         Note that this function is maintained mainly for backward
2018         compatibility, and that its use is not recommended.
2019
2020       · "$string = Date_to_Text($year,$month,$day[,$lang]);"
2021
2022         This function returns a string containing a textual representation of
2023         the given date of the form "www dd-Mmm-yyyy", where "www" are the
2024         first three letters of the name of the day of week in the given or
2025         currently selected language, or a special abbreviation, if special
2026         abbreviations have been defined for the given or currently selected
2027         language (see further below for details about the multi-language
2028         support of this package), "dd" is the day (one or two digits), "Mmm"
2029         are the first three letters of the name of the month in the given or
2030         currently selected language, and "yyyy" is the number of the year in
2031         full length.
2032
2033         If the given input values do not constitute a valid date, a fatal
2034         "not a valid date" error occurs.
2035
2036         (See the section "RECIPES" near the end of this document for a code
2037         snippet for how to print dates in any format you like.)
2038
2039       · "$string = Date_to_Text_Long($year,$month,$day[,$lang]);"
2040
2041         This function returns a string containing a textual representation of
2042         the given date roughly of the form "Wwwwww, dd Mmmmmm yyyy", where
2043         "Wwwwww" is the name of the day of week in the given or currently
2044         selected language (see further below for details about the multi-
2045         language support of this package), "dd" is the day (one or two
2046         digits), "Mmmmmm" is the name of the month in the given or currently
2047         selected language, and "yyyy" is the number of the year in full
2048         length.
2049
2050         The exact format of the output string depends on the given or
2051         currently selected language. In the original distribution of this
2052         package, these formats are defined as follows:
2053
2054           1  English    :  "Wwwwww, Mmmmmm ddth yyyy"
2055           2  French     :  "Wwwwww dd mmmmmm yyyy"
2056           3  German     :  "Wwwwww, den dd. Mmmmmm yyyy"
2057           4  Spanish    :  "Wwwwww, dd de mmmmmm de yyyy"
2058           5  Portuguese :  "Wwwwww, dia dd de mmmmmm de yyyy"
2059           6  Dutch      :  "Wwwwww, dd mmmmmm yyyy"
2060           7  Italian    :  "Wwwwww, dd Mmmmmm yyyy"
2061           8  Norwegian  :  "wwwwww, dd. mmmmmm yyyy"
2062           9  Swedish    :  "wwwwww, dd mmmmmm yyyy"
2063          10  Danish     :  "wwwwww, dd. mmmmmm yyyy"
2064          11  Finnish    :  "wwwwww, dd. mmmmmmta yyyy"
2065          12  Hungarian  :  "dd. Mmmmmm yyyy., wwwwww"
2066          13  Polish     :  "Wwwwww, dd Mmmmmm yyyy"
2067          14  Romanian   :  "Wwwwww dd Mmmmmm yyyy"
2068
2069         (You can change these formats in the file "DateCalc.c" before
2070         building this module in order to suit your personal preferences.)
2071
2072         If the given input values do not constitute a valid date, a fatal
2073         "not a valid date" error occurs.
2074
2075         In order to capitalize the day of week at the beginning of the string
2076         in Norwegian, use
2077         ""ucfirst(Date_to_Text_Long($year,$month,$day,8));"".
2078
2079         (See the section "RECIPES" near the end of this document for an
2080         example on how to print dates in any format you like.)
2081
2082       · "$string = English_Ordinal($number);"
2083
2084         This function returns a string containing the (english) abbreviation
2085         of the ordinal number for the given (cardinal) number "$number".
2086
2087         I.e.,
2088
2089             0  =>  '0th'    10  =>  '10th'    20  =>  '20th'
2090             1  =>  '1st'    11  =>  '11th'    21  =>  '21st'
2091             2  =>  '2nd'    12  =>  '12th'    22  =>  '22nd'
2092             3  =>  '3rd'    13  =>  '13th'    23  =>  '23rd'
2093             4  =>  '4th'    14  =>  '14th'    24  =>  '24th'
2094             5  =>  '5th'    15  =>  '15th'    25  =>  '25th'
2095             6  =>  '6th'    16  =>  '16th'    26  =>  '26th'
2096             7  =>  '7th'    17  =>  '17th'    27  =>  '27th'
2097             8  =>  '8th'    18  =>  '18th'    28  =>  '28th'
2098             9  =>  '9th'    19  =>  '19th'    29  =>  '29th'
2099
2100         etc.
2101
2102       · "$string = Calendar($year,$month[,$orthodox[,$lang]]);"
2103
2104         This function returns a calendar of the given month in the given year
2105         (somewhat similar to the UNIX ""cal"" command), in the given or
2106         currently selected language (see further below for details about the
2107         multi-language support of this package).
2108
2109         Example:
2110
2111           print Calendar(1998,5);
2112
2113         This will print:
2114
2115                    May 1998
2116           Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
2117                             1   2   3
2118             4   5   6   7   8   9  10
2119            11  12  13  14  15  16  17
2120            18  19  20  21  22  23  24
2121            25  26  27  28  29  30  31
2122
2123         If the optional boolean parameter "$orthodox" is given and true, the
2124         calendar starts on Sunday instead of Monday.
2125
2126       · "$string = Month_to_Text($month[,$lang]);"
2127
2128         This function returns the name of the given month in the given or
2129         currently selected language (see further below for details about the
2130         multi-language support of this package).
2131
2132         If the given month lies outside of the valid range from "1" to "12",
2133         a fatal "month out of range" error will occur.
2134
2135       · "$string = Day_of_Week_to_Text($dow[,$lang]);"
2136
2137         This function returns the name of the given day of week in the given
2138         or currently selected language (see further below for details about
2139         the multi-language support of this package).
2140
2141         If the given day of week lies outside of the valid range from "1" to
2142         "7", a fatal "day of week out of range" error will occur.
2143
2144       · "$string = Day_of_Week_Abbreviation($dow[,$lang]);"
2145
2146         This function returns the special abbreviation of the name of the
2147         given day of week, IF such special abbreviations have been defined
2148         for the given or currently selected language (see further below for
2149         details about the multi-language support of this package).
2150
2151         (In the original distribution of this package, this was only true for
2152         Portuguese. Starting with version 5.1, abbreviations for Polish have
2153         also been introduced. Starting with version 5.7, the abbreviations
2154         for Portuguese have been disabled. So Polish is currently the only
2155         language to define such special abbreviations.)
2156
2157         If not, the first three letters of the name of the day of week in the
2158         given or currently selected language are returned instead.
2159
2160         If the given day of week lies outside of the valid range from "1" to
2161         "7", a fatal "day of week out of range" error will occur.
2162
2163         Currently, this table of special abbreviations is only used by the
2164         functions ""Date_to_Text()"" and ""Calendar()"", internally.
2165
2166       · "$string = Language_to_Text($lang);"
2167
2168         This function returns the name of any language supported by this
2169         package when the internal number representing that language is given
2170         as input.
2171
2172         The original distribution supports the following fourteen languages:
2173
2174                     1   ==>   English                     (default)
2175                     2   ==>   Français    (French)
2176                     3   ==>   Deutsch     (German)
2177                     4   ==>   Español     (Spanish)
2178                     5   ==>   Português   (Portuguese)
2179                     6   ==>   Nederlands  (Dutch)
2180                     7   ==>   Italiano    (Italian)
2181                     8   ==>   Norsk       (Norwegian)
2182                     9   ==>   Svenska     (Swedish)
2183                    10   ==>   Dansk       (Danish)
2184                    11   ==>   suomi       (Finnish)
2185                    12   ==>   Magyar      (Hungarian)
2186                    13   ==>   polski      (Polish)
2187                    14   ==>   Romaneste   (Romanian)
2188
2189         See the section "How to install additional languages" in the file
2190         "INSTALL.txt" in this distribution for how to add more languages to
2191         this package.
2192
2193         See the description of the function ""Languages()"" further below to
2194         determine how many languages are actually available in a given
2195         installation of this package.
2196
2197       · "$lang = Language();"
2198
2199       · "Language($lang); # DEPRECATED"
2200
2201       · "$oldlang = Language($newlang); # DEPRECATED"
2202
2203         This function can be used to determine which language is currently
2204         selected, and to change the selected language (this latter use is
2205         deprecated, because this global setting may cause conflicts between
2206         threads or modules running concurrently).
2207
2208         Thereby, each language has a unique internal number.
2209
2210         The original distribution contains the following fourteen languages:
2211
2212                     1   ==>   English                     (default)
2213                     2   ==>   Français    (French)
2214                     3   ==>   Deutsch     (German)
2215                     4   ==>   Español     (Spanish)
2216                     5   ==>   Português   (Portuguese)
2217                     6   ==>   Nederlands  (Dutch)
2218                     7   ==>   Italiano    (Italian)
2219                     8   ==>   Norsk       (Norwegian)
2220                     9   ==>   Svenska     (Swedish)
2221                    10   ==>   Dansk       (Danish)
2222                    11   ==>   suomi       (Finnish)
2223                    12   ==>   Magyar      (Hungarian)
2224                    13   ==>   polski      (Polish)
2225                    14   ==>   Romaneste   (Romanian)
2226
2227         See the section "How to install additional languages" in the file
2228         "INSTALL.txt" in this distribution for how to add more languages to
2229         this package.
2230
2231         See the description of the function ""Languages()"" further below to
2232         determine how many languages are actually available in a given
2233         installation of this package.
2234
2235         BEWARE that in order for your programs to be portable, you should
2236         NEVER actually use the internal number of a language in this package
2237         EXPLICITLY, because the same number could mean different languages on
2238         different systems, depending on what languages have been added to any
2239         given installation of this package.
2240
2241         Therefore, you should always use a statement such as
2242
2243           Language(Decode_Language("Name_of_Language")); # DEPRECATED
2244
2245         or
2246
2247           DateCalc_Function(@parameters,Decode_Language("Name_of_Language")); # RECOMMENDED
2248
2249         to select the desired language, and
2250
2251           $language = Language_to_Text(Language());
2252
2253         or
2254
2255           $old_language = Language_to_Text(Language("Name_of_new_Language")); # DEPRECATED
2256
2257         to determine the (previously) selected language.
2258
2259         If the so chosen language is not available in the current
2260         installation, this will result in an appropriate error message,
2261         instead of silently using the wrong (a random) language (which just
2262         happens to have the same internal number in the other installation).
2263
2264         BEWARE that when using the function ""Language()"", the selected
2265         language is a global setting, shared by all threads or modules you
2266         might be running concurrently, thus possibly causing conflicts
2267         between them.
2268
2269         In order to avoid these conflicts, you should NEVER use the function
2270         ""Language()"", but should ALWAYS pass a language number (as returned
2271         by the function ""Decode_Language()"") to the functions which are
2272         language-dependent, which are:
2273
2274         "Decode_Month()", "Decode_Day_of_Week()", "Compressed_to_Text()",
2275         "Date_to_Text()", "Date_to_Text_Long()", "Calendar()",
2276         "Month_to_Text()", "Day_of_Week_to_Text()",
2277         "Day_of_Week_Abbreviation()", "Decode_Date_EU()", "Decode_Date_US()",
2278         "Decode_Date_EU2()", "Decode_Date_US2()", "Parse_Date()".
2279
2280         Note that when you pass an invalid number, such as e.g. zero, or no
2281         language parameter at all, these functions will revert to their
2282         behaviour in the versions of this module prior to 6.0, which means
2283         that the global setting (as set by ""Language()"") becomes active
2284         again (only in case of an invalid or missing language parameter!).
2285
2286         In the C library "DateCalc.c", where omitting a parameter is not an
2287         option, passing a zero for the language is therefore the recommended
2288         way to guarantee backward compatibility.
2289
2290       · "$max_lang = Languages();"
2291
2292         This function returns the (maximum) number of languages which are
2293         currently available in your installation of this package.
2294
2295         (This may vary from installation to installation.)
2296
2297         See the section "How to install additional languages" in the file
2298         "INSTALL.txt" in this distribution for how to add more languages to
2299         this package.
2300
2301         In the original distribution of this package there are fourteen
2302         built-in languages, therefore the value returned by this function
2303         will be "14" if no other languages have been added to your particular
2304         installation.
2305
2306       · "if (($year,$month,$day) = Decode_Date_EU2($string[,$lang))"
2307
2308         This function is the Perl equivalent of the function
2309         ""Decode_Date_EU()"" (implemented in C), included here merely as an
2310         example to demonstrate how easy it is to write your own routine in
2311         Perl (using regular expressions) adapted to your own special needs,
2312         should the necessity arise, and intended primarily as a basis for
2313         your own development.
2314
2315         In one particular case this Perl version is actually slightly more
2316         permissive than its C equivalent, as far as the class of permitted
2317         intervening (i.e., delimiting) characters is concerned.
2318
2319         (Can you tell the subtle, almost insignificant difference by looking
2320         at the code? Or by experimenting? Hint: Try the string "a3b1c64d"
2321         with both functions.)
2322
2323       · "if (($year,$month,$day) = Decode_Date_US2($string[,$lang))"
2324
2325         This function is the Perl equivalent of the function
2326         ""Decode_Date_US()"" (implemented in C), included here merely as an
2327         example to demonstrate how easy it is to write your own routine in
2328         Perl (using regular expressions) adapted to your own special needs,
2329         should the necessity arise, and intended primarily as a basis for
2330         your own development.
2331
2332         In one particular case this Perl version is actually slightly more
2333         permissive than its C equivalent.
2334
2335         (Hint: This is the same difference as with the ""Decode_Date_EU()""
2336         and ""Decode_Date_EU2()"" pair of functions.)
2337
2338         In a different case, the C version is a little bit more permissive
2339         than its Perl equivalent.
2340
2341         (Can you tell the difference by looking at the code? Or by
2342         experimenting?  Hint: Try the string "(1/364)" with both functions.)
2343
2344       · "if (($year,$month,$day) = Parse_Date($string[,$lang))"
2345
2346         This function is useful for parsing dates as returned by the UNIX
2347         ""date"" command or as found in the headers of e-mail (in order to
2348         determine the date at which some e-mail has been sent or received,
2349         for instance).
2350
2351         Example #1:
2352
2353           ($year,$month,$day) = Parse_Date(`/bin/date`);
2354
2355         Example #2:
2356
2357           while (<MAIL>)
2358           {
2359               if (/^From \S/)
2360               {
2361                   ($year,$month,$day) = Parse_Date($_);
2362                   ...
2363               }
2364               ...
2365           }
2366
2367         The function returns an empty list if it can't extract a valid date
2368         from the input string.
2369
2370       · "$lower = ISO_LC($string);"
2371
2372         Returns a copy of the given string where all letters of the
2373         ISO-Latin-1 character set have been replaced by their lower case
2374         equivalents.
2375
2376         Similar to Perl's built-in function ""lc()"" (see "lc" in
2377         perlfunc(1)) but for the whole ISO-Latin-1 character set, not just
2378         plain ASCII.
2379
2380       · "$upper = ISO_UC($string);"
2381
2382         Returns a copy of the given string where all letters of the
2383         ISO-Latin-1 character set have been replaced by their upper case
2384         equivalents.
2385
2386         Similar to Perl's built-in function ""uc()"" (see "uc" in
2387         perlfunc(1)) but for the whole ISO-Latin-1 character set, not just
2388         plain ASCII.
2389
2390       · "$string = Date::Calc::Version();"
2391
2392         This function returns a string with the (numeric) version number of
2393         the C library ("DateCalc.c") at the core of this package (which is
2394         also (automatically) the version number of the "Calc.xs" file).
2395
2396         Note that under all normal circumstances, this version number should
2397         be identical with the one found in the Perl variable
2398         "$Date::Calc::VERSION" (the version number of the "Calc.pm" file).
2399
2400         Since this function is not exported, you always have to qualify it
2401         explicitly, i.e., ""Date::Calc::Version()"".
2402
2403         This is to avoid possible name space conflicts with version functions
2404         from other modules.
2405

RECIPES

2407       1)  How do I compare two dates?
2408
2409           Solution #1:
2410
2411             use Date::Calc qw( Date_to_Days );
2412
2413             if (Date_to_Days($year1,$month1,$day1)  <
2414                 Date_to_Days($year2,$month2,$day2))
2415
2416             if (Date_to_Days($year1,$month1,$day1)  <=
2417                 Date_to_Days($year2,$month2,$day2))
2418
2419             if (Date_to_Days($year1,$month1,$day1)  >
2420                 Date_to_Days($year2,$month2,$day2))
2421
2422             if (Date_to_Days($year1,$month1,$day1)  >=
2423                 Date_to_Days($year2,$month2,$day2))
2424
2425             if (Date_to_Days($year1,$month1,$day1)  ==
2426                 Date_to_Days($year2,$month2,$day2))
2427
2428             if (Date_to_Days($year1,$month1,$day1)  !=
2429                 Date_to_Days($year2,$month2,$day2))
2430
2431             $cmp = (Date_to_Days($year1,$month1,$day1)  <=>
2432                     Date_to_Days($year2,$month2,$day2));
2433
2434           Solution #2:
2435
2436             use Date::Calc qw( Delta_Days );
2437
2438             if (Delta_Days($year1,$month1,$day1,
2439                            $year2,$month2,$day2) > 0)
2440
2441             if (Delta_Days($year1,$month1,$day1,
2442                            $year2,$month2,$day2) >= 0)
2443
2444             if (Delta_Days($year1,$month1,$day1,
2445                            $year2,$month2,$day2) < 0)
2446
2447             if (Delta_Days($year1,$month1,$day1,
2448                            $year2,$month2,$day2) <= 0)
2449
2450             if (Delta_Days($year1,$month1,$day1,
2451                            $year2,$month2,$day2) == 0)
2452
2453             if (Delta_Days($year1,$month1,$day1,
2454                            $year2,$month2,$day2) != 0)
2455
2456       2)  How do I check whether a given date lies within a certain range of
2457           dates?
2458
2459             use Date::Calc qw( Date_to_Days );
2460
2461             $lower = Date_to_Days($year1,$month1,$day1);
2462             $upper = Date_to_Days($year2,$month2,$day2);
2463
2464             $date = Date_to_Days($year,$month,$day);
2465
2466             if (($date >= $lower) && ($date <= $upper))
2467             {
2468                 # ok
2469             }
2470             else
2471             {
2472                 # not ok
2473             }
2474
2475       3)  How do I compare two dates with times? How do I check whether two
2476           dates and times lie more or less than a given time interval apart?
2477
2478           Solution #1:
2479
2480             use Date::Calc qw( Add_Delta_DHMS Date_to_Days );
2481
2482             @date1 = (2002,8,31,23,59,1);
2483             @date2 = (2002,9,1,11,30,59); # ==> less than 12 hours
2484
2485             #@date1 = (2002,8,31,22,59,1);
2486             #@date2 = (2002,9,1,11,30,59); # ==> more than 12 hours
2487
2488             # Omit the next line if you just want to compare the two dates
2489             # (and change @date3 and @d3 to @date1 and @d1, respectively):
2490
2491             @date3 = Add_Delta_DHMS(@date1, 0,12,0,0); # ==> is the difference within 12 hours?
2492
2493             @d2 = ( Date_to_Days(@date2[0..2]), ($date2[3]*60+$date2[4])*60+$date2[5] );
2494             @d3 = ( Date_to_Days(@date3[0..2]), ($date3[3]*60+$date3[4])*60+$date3[5] );
2495
2496             @diff = ( $d2[0]-$d3[0], $d2[1]-$d3[1] );
2497
2498             if ($diff[0] > 0 and $diff[1] < 0) { $diff[0]--; $diff[1] += 86400; }
2499             if ($diff[0] < 0 and $diff[1] > 0) { $diff[0]++; $diff[1] -= 86400; }
2500
2501             if (($diff[0] || $diff[1]) >= 0) { print "More than 12 hours.\n"; }
2502             else                             { print "Less than 12 hours.\n"; }
2503
2504           Solution #2:
2505
2506           This solution is only feasible if your dates are guaranteed to lie
2507           within the range given by your system's epoch and overflow date and
2508           time!
2509
2510                Unix:    1-Jan-1970 00:00:00  to  19-Jan-2038 03:14:07
2511                MacOS:   1-Jan-1904 00:00:00  to   6-Feb-2040 06:28:15
2512
2513             use Date::Calc qw( Date_to_Time );
2514
2515             @date1 = (2002,8,31,23,59,1);
2516             @date2 = (2002,9,1,11,30,59); # ==> less than 12 hours
2517
2518             #@date1 = (2002,8,31,22,59,1);
2519             #@date2 = (2002,9,1,11,30,59); # ==> more than 12 hours
2520
2521             $d1 = Date_to_Time(@date1);
2522             $d2 = Date_to_Time(@date2);
2523
2524             if ($d1 <= $d2) { print "The two dates are in chronological order.\n"; }
2525             else            { print "The two dates are in reversed order.\n"; }
2526
2527             if ($d1 + 12*60*60 <= $d2) { print "More than 12 hours.\n"; }
2528             else                       { print "Less than 12 hours.\n"; }
2529
2530       4)  How do I verify whether someone has a certain age?
2531
2532             use Date::Calc qw( Decode_Date_EU Today leap_year Delta_Days );
2533
2534             $date = <STDIN>; # get birthday
2535
2536             ($year1,$month1,$day1) = Decode_Date_EU($date);
2537
2538             ($year2,$month2,$day2) = Today();
2539
2540             if (($day1 == 29) && ($month1 == 2) && !leap_year($year2))
2541                 { $day1--; }
2542
2543             if ( (($year2 - $year1) >  18) ||
2544                ( (($year2 - $year1) == 18) &&
2545                (Delta_Days($year2,$month1,$day1, $year2,$month2,$day2) >= 0) ) )
2546             {
2547                 print "Ok - you are over 18.\n";
2548             }
2549             else
2550             {
2551                 print "Sorry - you aren't 18 yet!\n";
2552             }
2553
2554             Or, alternatively (substituting the last "if" statement above):
2555
2556             if (($year1+18 <=> $year2 || $month1 <=> $month2 || $day1 <=> $day2) <= 0)
2557                 { print "Ok - you are over 18.\n"; }
2558             else
2559                 { print "Sorry - you aren't 18 yet!\n"; }
2560
2561       5)  How do I calculate the number of the week of month the current date
2562           lies in?
2563
2564           For example:
2565
2566                       April 1998
2567               Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
2568                         1   2   3   4   5  =  week #1
2569                 6   7   8   9  10  11  12  =  week #2
2570                13  14  15  16  17  18  19  =  week #3
2571                20  21  22  23  24  25  26  =  week #4
2572                27  28  29  30              =  week #5
2573
2574           Solution:
2575
2576             use Date::Calc qw( Today Day_of_Week );
2577
2578             ($year,$month,$day) = Today();
2579
2580             $week = int(($day + Day_of_Week($year,$month,1) - 2) / 7) + 1;
2581
2582       6)  How do I calculate whether a given date is the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th
2583           or 5th of that day of week in the given month?
2584
2585           For example:
2586
2587                      October 2000
2588               Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
2589                                         1
2590                 2   3   4   5   6   7   8
2591                 9  10  11  12  13  14  15
2592                16  17  18  19  20  21  22
2593                23  24  25  26  27  28  29
2594                30  31
2595
2596           Is Sunday, the 15th of October 2000, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th
2597           Sunday of that month?
2598
2599           Solution:
2600
2601             use Date::Calc qw( Day_of_Week Delta_Days
2602                                Nth_Weekday_of_Month_Year
2603                                Date_to_Text_Long English_Ordinal
2604                                Day_of_Week_to_Text Month_to_Text );
2605
2606             ($year,$month,$day) = (2000,10,15);
2607
2608             $dow = Day_of_Week($year,$month,$day);
2609
2610             $n = int( Delta_Days(
2611                       Nth_Weekday_of_Month_Year($year,$month,$dow,1),
2612                       $year,$month,$day)
2613                       / 7) + 1;
2614
2615             printf("%s is the %s %s in %s %d.\n",
2616                 Date_to_Text_Long($year,$month,$day),
2617                 English_Ordinal($n),
2618                 Day_of_Week_to_Text($dow),
2619                 Month_to_Text($month),
2620                 $year);
2621
2622           This prints:
2623
2624             Sunday, October 15th 2000 is the 3rd Sunday in October 2000.
2625
2626       7)  How do I calculate the date of the Wednesday of the same week as
2627           the current date?
2628
2629           Solution #1:
2630
2631             use Date::Calc qw( Today Day_of_Week Add_Delta_Days );
2632
2633             $searching_dow = 3; # 3 = Wednesday
2634
2635             @today = Today();
2636
2637             $current_dow = Day_of_Week(@today);
2638
2639             @date = Add_Delta_Days(@today, $searching_dow - $current_dow);
2640
2641           Solution #2:
2642
2643             use Date::Calc qw( Today Add_Delta_Days
2644                                Monday_of_Week Week_of_Year );
2645
2646             $searching_dow = 3; # 3 = Wednesday
2647
2648             @today = Today();
2649
2650             @date = Add_Delta_Days( Monday_of_Week( Week_of_Year(@today) ),
2651                                     $searching_dow - 1 );
2652
2653           Solution #3:
2654
2655             use Date::Calc qw( Standard_to_Business Today
2656                                Business_to_Standard );
2657
2658             @business = Standard_to_Business(Today());
2659
2660             $business[2] = 3; # 3 = Wednesday
2661
2662             @date = Business_to_Standard(@business);
2663
2664       8)  How can I add a week offset to a business date (including across
2665           year boundaries)?
2666
2667             use Date::Calc qw( Business_to_Standard Add_Delta_Days
2668                                Standard_to_Business );
2669
2670             @temp = Business_to_Standard($year,$week,$dow);
2671
2672             @temp = Add_Delta_Days(@temp, $week_offset * 7);
2673
2674             ($year,$week,$dow) = Standard_to_Business(@temp);
2675
2676       9)  How do I calculate the last and the next Saturday for any given
2677           date?
2678
2679             use Date::Calc qw( Today Day_of_Week Add_Delta_Days
2680                                Day_of_Week_to_Text Date_to_Text );
2681
2682             $searching_dow = 6; # 6 = Saturday
2683
2684             @today = Today();
2685
2686             $current_dow = Day_of_Week(@today);
2687
2688             if ($searching_dow == $current_dow)
2689             {
2690                 @prev = Add_Delta_Days(@today,-7);
2691                 @next = Add_Delta_Days(@today,+7);
2692             }
2693             else
2694             {
2695                 if ($searching_dow > $current_dow)
2696                 {
2697                     @next = Add_Delta_Days(@today,
2698                               $searching_dow - $current_dow);
2699                     @prev = Add_Delta_Days(@next,-7);
2700                 }
2701                 else
2702                 {
2703                     @prev = Add_Delta_Days(@today,
2704                               $searching_dow - $current_dow);
2705                     @next = Add_Delta_Days(@prev,+7);
2706                 }
2707             }
2708
2709             $dow = Day_of_Week_to_Text($searching_dow);
2710
2711             print "Today is:      ", ' ' x length($dow),
2712                                          Date_to_Text(@today), "\n";
2713             print "Last $dow was:     ", Date_to_Text(@prev),  "\n";
2714             print "Next $dow will be: ", Date_to_Text(@next),  "\n";
2715
2716           This will print something like:
2717
2718             Today is:              Sun 12-Apr-1998
2719             Last Saturday was:     Sat 11-Apr-1998
2720             Next Saturday will be: Sat 18-Apr-1998
2721
2722       10) How can I calculate the last business day (payday!) of a month?
2723
2724           Solution #1 (holidays NOT taken into account):
2725
2726             use Date::Calc qw( Days_in_Month Day_of_Week Add_Delta_Days );
2727
2728             $day = Days_in_Month($year,$month);
2729             $dow = Day_of_Week($year,$month,$day);
2730             if ($dow > 5)
2731             {
2732                 ($year,$month,$day) =
2733                     Add_Delta_Days($year,$month,$day, 5-$dow);
2734             }
2735
2736           Solution #2 (holidays taken into account):
2737
2738           This solution expects a multi-dimensional array "@holiday", which
2739           contains all holidays, as follows: ""$holiday[$year][$month][$day]
2740           = 1;"".
2741
2742           (See the description of the function ""Easter_Sunday()"" further
2743           above for how to calculate the moving (variable) christian feast
2744           days!)
2745
2746           Days which are not holidays remain undefined or should have a value
2747           of zero in this array.
2748
2749             use Date::Calc qw( Days_in_Month Add_Delta_Days Day_of_Week );
2750
2751             $day = Days_in_Month($year,$month);
2752             while (1)
2753             {
2754                 while ($holiday[$year][$month][$day])
2755                 {
2756                     ($year,$month,$day) =
2757                         Add_Delta_Days($year,$month,$day, -1);
2758                 }
2759                 $dow = Day_of_Week($year,$month,$day);
2760                 if ($dow > 5)
2761                 {
2762                     ($year,$month,$day) =
2763                         Add_Delta_Days($year,$month,$day, 5-$dow);
2764                 }
2765                 else { last; }
2766             }
2767
2768           Solution #3 (holidays taken into account, more comfortable, but
2769           requires Date::Calendar(3) and Date::Calc::Object(3)):
2770
2771             use Date::Calc::Object qw( Today Add_Delta_YM Date_to_Text_Long );
2772             use Date::Calendar::Profiles qw($Profiles);
2773             use Date::Calendar;
2774
2775             $calendar = Date::Calendar->new( $Profiles->{'DE-BW'} );
2776
2777             @today = Today();
2778             @nextmonth = Add_Delta_YM(@today[0,1],1, 0,1);
2779
2780             $workaround = $calendar->add_delta_workdays(@nextmonth,+1);
2781             $payday     = $calendar->add_delta_workdays($workaround,-2);
2782
2783             print "Pay day = ", Date_to_Text_Long($payday->date()), "\n";
2784
2785           The "workaround" is necessary due to a bug in the method
2786           "add_delta_workdays()" when adding a negative number of workdays.
2787
2788       11) How do I convert a MS Visual Basic "DATETIME" value into its date
2789           and time constituents?
2790
2791             use Date::Calc qw( Add_Delta_DHMS Date_to_Text );
2792
2793             $datetime = "35883.121653";
2794
2795             ($Dd,$Dh,$Dm,$Ds) = ($datetime =~ /^(\d+)\.(\d\d)(\d\d)(\d\d)$/);
2796
2797             ($year,$month,$day, $hour,$min,$sec) =
2798                 Add_Delta_DHMS(1900,1,1, 0,0,0, $Dd,$Dh,$Dm,$Ds);
2799
2800             printf("The given date is %s %02d:%02d:%02d\n",
2801                 Date_to_Text($year,$month,$day), $hour, $min, $sec);
2802
2803           This prints:
2804
2805             The given date is Tue 31-Mar-1998 12:16:53
2806
2807           Since I do not have or use Visual Basic, I can't guarantee that the
2808           number format assumed here is really the one used by Visual Basic -
2809           but you get the general idea. ":-)"
2810
2811           Moreover, consider the following:
2812
2813           Morten Sickel <Morten.Sickel@nrpa.no> wrote:
2814
2815           I discovered a bug in Excel (2000): Excel thinks that 1900 was a
2816           leap year. Users should use 31-Dec-1899 as the date to add an Excel
2817           date value to in order to get the correct date.
2818
2819           I found out on the web that this bug originated in Lotus 123, which
2820           made 29-Feb-1900 an "industrial standard". MS chose to keep the bug
2821           in order to be compatible with Lotus 123. But they have not
2822           mentioned anything about it in the help files.
2823
2824       12) How can I send a reminder to members of a group on the day before a
2825           meeting which occurs every first Friday of a month?
2826
2827             use Date::Calc qw( Today Date_to_Days Add_Delta_YMD
2828                                Nth_Weekday_of_Month_Year );
2829
2830             ($year,$month,$day) = Today();
2831
2832             $tomorrow = Date_to_Days($year,$month,$day) + 1;
2833
2834             $dow = 5; # 5 = Friday
2835             $n   = 1; # 1 = First of that day of week
2836
2837             $meeting_this_month = Date_to_Days(
2838                 Nth_Weekday_of_Month_Year($year,$month,$dow,$n) );
2839
2840             ($year,$month,$day) = Add_Delta_YMD($year,$month,$day, 0,1,0);
2841
2842             $meeting_next_month = Date_to_Days(
2843                 Nth_Weekday_of_Month_Year($year,$month,$dow,$n) );
2844
2845             if (($tomorrow == $meeting_this_month) ||
2846                 ($tomorrow == $meeting_next_month))
2847             {
2848                 # Send reminder e-mail!
2849             }
2850
2851       13) How can I print a date in a different format than provided by the
2852           functions ""Date_to_Text()"", ""Date_to_Text_Long()"" or
2853           ""Compressed_to_Text()""?
2854
2855             use Date::Calc qw( Today Day_of_Week_to_Text
2856                                Day_of_Week Month_to_Text
2857                                English_Ordinal );
2858
2859             ($year,$month,$day) = Today();
2860
2861           For example with leading zeros for the day: "Fri 03-Jan-1964"
2862
2863             printf("%.3s %02d-%.3s-%d\n",
2864                 Day_of_Week_to_Text(Day_of_Week($year,$month,$day)),
2865                 $day,
2866                 Month_to_Text($month),
2867                 $year);
2868
2869           For example in U.S. american format: "April 12th, 1998"
2870
2871             $string = sprintf("%s %s, %d",
2872                           Month_to_Text($month),
2873                           English_Ordinal($day),
2874                           $year);
2875
2876           For example in one of the possible formats as specified by
2877           ISO 8601:
2878
2879             @date = ($year,$month,$day,$hour,$min,$sec);
2880             $date = sprintf("%d-%02d-%02d %02d:%02d:%02d", @date);
2881
2882           (See also "printf" in perlfunc(1) and/or "sprintf" in perlfunc(1)!)
2883
2884       14) How can I iterate through a range of dates?
2885
2886             use Date::Calc qw( Delta_Days Add_Delta_Days );
2887
2888             @start = (1999,5,27);
2889             @stop  = (1999,6,1);
2890
2891             $j = Delta_Days(@start,@stop);
2892
2893             for ( $i = 0; $i <= $j; $i++ )
2894             {
2895                 @date = Add_Delta_Days(@start,$i);
2896                 printf("%4d/%02d/%02d\n", @date);
2897             }
2898
2899           Note that the loop can be improved; see also the recipe below.
2900
2901       15) How can I create a (Perl) list of dates in a certain range?
2902
2903             use Date::Calc qw( Delta_Days Add_Delta_Days Date_to_Text );
2904
2905             sub date_range
2906             {
2907                 my(@date) = (@_)[0,1,2];
2908                 my(@list);
2909                 my($i);
2910
2911                 $i = Delta_Days(@_);
2912                 while ($i-- >= 0)
2913                 {
2914                     push( @list, [ @date ] );
2915                     @date = Add_Delta_Days(@date, 1) if ($i >= 0);
2916                 }
2917                 return(@list);
2918             }
2919
2920             @range = &date_range(1999,11,3, 1999,12,24); # in chronological order
2921
2922             foreach $date (@range)
2923             {
2924                 print Date_to_Text(@{$date}), "\n";
2925             }
2926
2927           Note that you probably shouldn't use this one, because it is much
2928           more efficient to iterate through all the dates (as shown in the
2929           recipe immediately above) than to construct such an array and then
2930           to loop through it. Also, it is much more space-efficient not to
2931           create this array.
2932
2933       16) How can I calculate the difference in days between dates, but
2934           without counting Saturdays and Sundays?
2935
2936             sub Delta_Business_Days
2937             {
2938                 my(@date1) = (@_)[0,1,2];
2939                 my(@date2) = (@_)[3,4,5];
2940                 my($minus,$result,$dow1,$dow2,$diff,$temp);
2941
2942                 $minus  = 0;
2943                 $result = Delta_Days(@date1,@date2);
2944                 if ($result != 0)
2945                 {
2946                     if ($result < 0)
2947                     {
2948                         $minus = 1;
2949                         $result = -$result;
2950                         $dow1 = Day_of_Week(@date2);
2951                         $dow2 = Day_of_Week(@date1);
2952                     }
2953                     else
2954                     {
2955                         $dow1 = Day_of_Week(@date1);
2956                         $dow2 = Day_of_Week(@date2);
2957                     }
2958                     $diff = $dow2 - $dow1;
2959                     $temp = $result;
2960                     if ($diff != 0)
2961                     {
2962                         if ($diff < 0)
2963                         {
2964                             $diff += 7;
2965                         }
2966                         $temp -= $diff;
2967                         $dow1 += $diff;
2968                         if ($dow1 > 6)
2969                         {
2970                             $result--;
2971                             if ($dow1 > 7)
2972                             {
2973                                 $result--;
2974                             }
2975                         }
2976                     }
2977                     if ($temp != 0)
2978                     {
2979                         $temp /= 7;
2980                         $result -= ($temp << 1);
2981                     }
2982                 }
2983                 if ($minus) { return -$result; }
2984                 else        { return  $result; }
2985             }
2986
2987           This solution is probably of little practical value, however,
2988           because it doesn't take legal holidays into account.
2989
2990           See Date::Calendar(3) for how to do that.
2991
2992       17) How can I "normalize" the output of the "Delta_YMDHMS()" (or
2993           "Delta_YMD()") function so that it contains only positive values?
2994
2995           I.e., how can I show a difference in date (and time) in a more
2996           human-readable form, for example in order to show how much time
2997           until (or since) the expiration of something (e.g. an account, a
2998           domain, a credit card, etc.) is left (has passed)?
2999
3000           Correct solution: Use the functions "N_Delta_YMDHMS()" and
3001           "N_Delta_YMD()" instead!
3002
3003           The following gives a rudimentary sketch of a (much inferior)
3004           solution, which is maintained here only for historical reasons of
3005           this module:
3006
3007           a) Delta_YMDHMS():
3008
3009             #!perl
3010             use strict;
3011             use Date::Calc qw(Today_and_Now Delta_YMDHMS Add_Delta_YMDHMS Delta_DHMS Date_to_Text);
3012
3013             my $today = [Today_and_Now()];
3014             my $target = [2005,1,1,0,0,0];
3015
3016             my $sign = "until";
3017             my $delta = Normalize_Delta_YMDHMS($today,$target);
3018             if ($delta->[0] < 0)
3019             {
3020                 $sign = "since";
3021                 $delta = Normalize_Delta_YMDHMS($target,$today);
3022             }
3023             printf("Today is %s %02d:%02d:%02d\n", Date_to_Text(@{$today}[0..2]), @{$today}[3..5]);
3024             printf
3025             (
3026                 "%d year%s, %d month%s, %d day%s, %d hour%s, %d minute%s, %d second%s %s %s %02d:%02d:%02d\n",
3027                 $delta->[0], (($delta->[0]==1)?'':'s'),
3028                 $delta->[1], (($delta->[1]==1)?'':'s'),
3029                 $delta->[2], (($delta->[2]==1)?'':'s'),
3030                 $delta->[3], (($delta->[3]==1)?'':'s'),
3031                 $delta->[4], (($delta->[4]==1)?'':'s'),
3032                 $delta->[5], (($delta->[5]==1)?'':'s'),
3033                 $sign,
3034                 Date_to_Text(@{$target}[0..2]),
3035                 @{$target}[3..5]
3036             );
3037
3038             sub Normalize_Delta_YMDHMS
3039             {
3040                 my($date1,$date2) = @_;
3041                 my(@delta);
3042
3043                 @delta = Delta_YMDHMS(@$date1,@$date2);
3044                 while ($delta[1] < 0 or
3045                        $delta[2] < 0 or
3046                        $delta[3] < 0 or
3047                        $delta[4] < 0 or
3048                        $delta[5] < 0)
3049                 {
3050                     if ($delta[1] < 0) { $delta[0]--; $delta[1] += 12; }
3051                     if ($delta[2] < 0)
3052                     {
3053                         $delta[1]--;
3054                         @delta[2..5] = (0,0,0,0);
3055                         @delta[2..5] = Delta_DHMS(Add_Delta_YMDHMS(@$date1,@delta),@$date2);
3056                     }
3057                     if ($delta[3] < 0) { $delta[2]--; $delta[3] += 24; }
3058                     if ($delta[4] < 0) { $delta[3]--; $delta[4] += 60; }
3059                     if ($delta[5] < 0) { $delta[4]--; $delta[5] += 60; }
3060                 }
3061                 return \@delta;
3062             }
3063
3064           b) Delta_YMD():
3065
3066             #!perl
3067             use strict;
3068             use Date::Calc qw(Today Delta_YMD Add_Delta_YM Delta_Days Date_to_Text);
3069
3070             my($sign,$delta);
3071             my $today = [Today()];
3072             my $target = [2005,1,1];
3073
3074             if (Delta_Days(@$today,@$target) < 0)
3075             {
3076                 $sign = "since";
3077                 $delta = Normalize_Delta_YMD($target,$today);
3078             }
3079             else
3080             {
3081                 $sign = "until";
3082                 $delta = Normalize_Delta_YMD($today,$target);
3083             }
3084             print "Today is ", Date_to_Text(@$today), "\n";
3085             printf
3086             (
3087                 "%d year%s, %d month%s, %d day%s %s %s\n",
3088                 $delta->[0], (($delta->[0]==1)?'':'s'),
3089                 $delta->[1], (($delta->[1]==1)?'':'s'),
3090                 $delta->[2], (($delta->[2]==1)?'':'s'),
3091                 $sign,
3092                 Date_to_Text(@$target)
3093             );
3094
3095             sub Normalize_Delta_YMD
3096             {
3097                 my($date1,$date2) = @_;
3098                 my(@delta);
3099
3100                 @delta = Delta_YMD(@$date1,@$date2);
3101                 while ($delta[1] < 0 or $delta[2] < 0)
3102                 {
3103                     if ($delta[1] < 0) { $delta[0]--; $delta[1] += 12; }
3104                     if ($delta[2] < 0)
3105                     {
3106                         $delta[1]--;
3107                         $delta[2] = Delta_Days(Add_Delta_YM(@$date1,@delta[0,1]),@$date2);
3108                     }
3109                 }
3110                 return \@delta;
3111             }
3112
3113           Note that for normalizing just a time vector, you can use the
3114           built-in function "Normalize_DHMS()". However, this will yield
3115           either all positive OR all negative values, NOT all positive values
3116           as above.
3117

SEE ALSO

3119       Date::Calc::Util(3), Date::Calc::Object(3), Date::Calendar(3),
3120       Date::Calendar::Year(3), Date::Calendar::Profiles(3).
3121
3122         "The Calendar FAQ":
3123         http://www.tondering.dk/claus/calendar.html
3124         by Claus Tondering <claus@tondering.dk>
3125

BEWARE

3127       When you are using the (deprecated) function "Language()", the language
3128       setting is stored in a global variable.
3129
3130       This may cause conflicts between threads or modules running
3131       concurrently.
3132
3133       Therefore, in order to avoid such conflicts, NEVER use the function
3134       "Language()", but ALWAYS pass a language parameter to the functions
3135       which are language-dependent.
3136

VERSION

3138       This man page documents "Date::Calc" version 6.4.
3139

AUTHOR

3141         Steffen Beyer
3142         mailto:STBEY@cpan.org
3143         http://www.engelschall.com/u/sb/download/
3144
3146       Copyright (c) 1995 - 2015 by Steffen Beyer. All rights reserved.
3147

LICENSE

3149       This package is free software; you can use, modify and redistribute it
3150       under the same terms as Perl itself, i.e., at your option, under the
3151       terms either of the "Artistic License" or the "GNU General Public
3152       License".
3153
3154       The C library at the core of the module "Date::Calc::XS" can, at your
3155       discretion, also be used, modified and redistributed under the terms of
3156       the "GNU Library General Public License".
3157
3158       Please refer to the files "Artistic.txt", "GNU_GPL.txt" and
3159       "GNU_LGPL.txt" in the "license" subdirectory of this distribution for
3160       any details!
3161

DISCLAIMER

3163       This package is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
3164       WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
3165       MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
3166
3167       See the "GNU General Public License" for more details.
3168

POD ERRORS

3170       Hey! The above document had some coding errors, which are explained
3171       below:
3172
3173       Around line 1761:
3174           Non-ASCII character seen before =encoding in 'Français'. Assuming
3175           CP1252
3176
3177
3178
3179perl v5.28.0                      2015-03-07                     Date::Calc(3)
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