1DateTime::Tiny(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation DateTime::Tiny(3)
2
6 DateTime::Tiny - A date object, with as little code as possible
7
9 version 1.07
10
12 # Create a date manually
13 $christmas = DateTime::Tiny->new(
14 year => 2006,
15 month => 12,
16 day => 25,
17 hour => 10,
18 minute => 45,
19 second => 0,
20 );
21 # Show the current date
23 my $now = DateTime::Tiny->now;
24 print "Year : " . $now->year . "\n";
25 print "Month : " . $now->month . "\n";
26 print "Day : " . $now->day . "\n";
27 print "Hour : " . $now->hour . "\n";
28 print "Minute : " . $now->minute . "\n";
29 print "Second : " . $now->second . "\n";
30
32 DateTime::Tiny is a most prominent member of the DateTime::Tiny suite
33 of time modules.
34 It implements an extremely lightweight object that represents a
36 datetime.
37 The Tiny Mandate
39 Many CPAN modules which provide the best implementation of a certain
40 concepts are very large. For some reason, this generally seems to be
41 about 3 megabyte of ram usage to load the module.
42 For a lot of the situations in which these large and comprehensive
44 implementations exist, some people will only need a small fraction of
45 the functionality, or only need this functionality in an ancillary
46 role.
47 The aim of the Tiny modules is to implement an alternative to the large
49 module that implements a useful subset of their functionality, using as
50 little code as possible.
51 Typically, this means a module that implements between 50% and 80% of
53 the features of the larger module (although this is just a guideline),
54 but using only 100 kilobytes of code, which is about 1/30th of the
55 larger module.
56 The Concept of Tiny Date and Time
58 Due to the inherent complexity, Date and Time is intrinsically very
59 difficult to implement properly.
60 The arguably only module to implement it completely correct is
62 DateTime. However, to implement it properly DateTime is quite slow and
63 requires 3-4 megabytes of memory to load.
64 The challenge in implementing a Tiny equivalent to DateTime is to do so
66 without making the functionality critically flawed, and to carefully
67 select the subset of functionality to implement.
68 If you look at where the main complexity and cost exists, you will find
70 that it is relatively cheap to represent a date or time as an object,
71 but much much more expensive to modify, manipulate or convert the
72 object.
73 As a result, DateTime::Tiny provides the functionality required to
75 represent a date as an object, to stringify the date and to parse it
76 back in, but does not allow you to modify the dates.
77 The purpose of this is to allow for date object representations in
79 situations like log parsing and fast real-time type work.
80 The problem with this is that having no ability to modify date limits
82 the usefulness greatly.
83 To make up for this, if you have DateTime installed, any DateTime::Tiny
85 module can be inflated into the equivalent DateTime as needing, loading
86 DateTime on the fly if necessary.
87 This is somewhat similar to DateTime::LazyInit, but unlike that module
89 DateTime::Tiny objects are not modifiable.
90 For the purposes of date/time logic, all DateTime::Tiny objects exist
92 in the "C" locale, and the "floating" time zone. This may be improved
93 in the future if a suitably tiny way of handling timezones is found.
94 When converting up to full DateTime objects, these locale and time zone
96 settings will be applied (although an ability is provided to override
97 this).
98 In addition, the implementation is strictly correct and is intended to
100 be very easily to sub-class for specific purposes of your own.
101
103 In general, the intent is that the API be as close as possible to the
104 API for DateTime. Except, of course, that this module implements less
105 of it.
106
108 new
109 my $date = DateTime::Tiny->new(
110 year => 2006,
111 month => 12,
112 day => 31,
113 hour => 10,
114 minute => 45,
115 second => 32,
116 );
117 The "new" constructor creates a new DateTime::Tiny object.
119 It takes six named parameters. "day" should be the day of the month
121 (1-31), "month" should be the month of the year (1-12), "year" as a 4
122 digit year. "hour" should be the hour of the day (0-23), "minute"
123 should be the minute of the hour (0-59) and "second" should be the
124 second of the minute (0-59).
125 These are the only parameters accepted.
127 Returns a new DateTime::Tiny object.
129 now
131 my $current_date = DateTime::Tiny->now;
132 The "now" method creates a new date object for the current date.
134 The date created will be based on localtime, despite the fact that the
136 date is created in the floating time zone.
137 Returns a new DateTime::Tiny object.
139 year
141 The "year" accessor returns the 4-digit year for the date.
142 month
144 The "month" accessor returns the 1-12 month of the year for the date.
145 day
147 The "day" accessor returns the 1-31 day of the month for the date.
148 hour
150 The "hour" accessor returns the hour component of the time as an
151 integer from zero to twenty-three (0-23) in line with 24-hour time.
152 minute
154 The "minute" accessor returns the minute component of the time as an
155 integer from zero to fifty-nine (0-59).
156 second
158 The "second" accessor returns the second component of the time as an
159 integer from zero to fifty-nine (0-59).
160 ymdhms
162 The "ymdhms" method returns the most common and accurate stringified
163 date format, which returns in the form "2006-04-12T23:59:59".
164 from_string
166 The "from_string" method creates a new DateTime::Tiny object from a
167 string.
168 The string is expected to be an ISO 8601 combined date and time, with
170 separators (including the 'T' separator) and no time zone designator.
171 No other ISO 8601 formats are supported.
172 my $almost_midnight = DateTime::Tiny->from_string( '2006-12-20T23:59:59' );
174 Returns a new DateTime::Tiny object, or throws an exception on error.
176 as_string
178 The "as_string" method converts the date to the default string, which
179 at present is the same as that returned by the "ymdhms" method above.
180 This string conforms to the ISO 8601 standard for the encoding of a
182 combined date and time as a string, without time-zone designator.
183 DateTime
185 The "DateTime" method is used to create a DateTime object that is
186 equivalent to the DateTime::Tiny object, for use in conversions and
187 calculations.
188 As mentioned earlier, the object will be set to the 'C' locale, and the
190 'floating' time zone.
191 If installed, the DateTime module will be loaded automatically.
193 Returns a DateTime object, or throws an exception if DateTime is not
195 installed on the current host.
196
198 This module was written by Adam Kennedy in 2006. In 2016, David Golden
199 adopted it as a caretaker maintainer.
200
202 DateTime, Date::Tiny, Time::Tiny, Config::Tiny, ali.as
203
205 Bugs / Feature Requests
206 Please report any bugs or feature requests through the issue tracker at
207 <https://github.com/dagolden/DateTime-Tiny/issues>. You will be
208 notified automatically of any progress on your issue.
209 Source Code
211 This is open source software. The code repository is available for
212 public review and contribution under the terms of the license.
213 <https://github.com/dagolden/DateTime-Tiny>
215 git clone https://github.com/dagolden/DateTime-Tiny.git
217
219 • Adam Kennedy <adamk@cpan.org>
220 • David Golden <dagolden@cpan.org>
222
224 • Ken Williams <Ken.Williams@WindLogics.com>
225 • Nigel Gregoire <nigelg@airg.com>
227 • Ovid <curtis_ovid_poe@yahoo.com>
229
231 This software is copyright (c) 2006 by Adam Kennedy.
232 This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
234 the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.
235perl v5.34.0 2021-07-22 DateTime::Tiny(3)