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

6       Date::Extract - extract probable dates from strings
7

SYNOPSIS

9           my $parser = Date::Extract->new();
10           my $dt = $parser->extract($arbitrary_text)
11               or die "No date found.";
12           return $dt->ymd;
13

MOTIVATION

15       There are already a few modules for getting a date out of a string.
16       DateTime::Format::Natural should be your first choice. There's also
17       Time::ParseDate which fits many formats. Finally, you can coerce
18       Date::Manip to do your bidding.
19
20       But I needed something that will take an arbitrary block of text,
21       search it for something that looks like a date string, and extract it.
22       This module fills this niche. By design it will produce few false
23       positives. This means it will not catch nearly everything that looks
24       like a date string. So if you have the string "do homework for class
25       2019" it won't return a DateTime object with the year set to 2019. This
26       is what your users would probably expect.
27

METHODS

29   new PARAMHASH => "Date::Extract"
30       arguments
31
32       format
33           Choose what format the extracted date(s) will be. The default is
34           "DateTime", which will return DateTime object(s). Other option
35           include "verbatim" (return the original text), or "epoch" (return
36           Unix timestamp).
37
38       time_zone
39           Only relevant when "format" is set to "DateTime".
40
41           Forces a particular time zone to be set (this actually matters, as
42           "tomorrow" on Monday at 11 PM means something different than
43           "tomorrow" on Tuesday at 1 AM).
44
45           By default it will use the "floating" time zone. See the
46           documentation for DateTime.
47
48           This controls both the input time zone and output time zone.
49
50       prefers
51           This argument decides what happens when an ambiguous date appears
52           in the input. For example, "Friday" may refer to any number of
53           Fridays. The valid options for this argument are:
54
55           nearest
56               Prefer the nearest date. This is the default.
57
58           future
59               Prefer the closest future date.
60
61           past
62               Prefer the closest past date. NOT YET SUPPORTED.
63
64       returns
65           If the text has multiple possible dates, then this argument
66           determines which date will be returned. By default it's 'first'.
67
68           first
69               Returns the first date found in the string.
70
71           last
72               Returns the final date found in the string.
73
74           earliest
75               Returns the date found in the string that chronologically
76               precedes any other date in the string.
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78           latest
79               Returns the date found in the string that chronologically
80               follows any other date in the string.
81
82           all Returns all dates found in the string, in the order they were
83               found in the string.
84
85           all_cron
86               Returns all dates found in the string, in chronological order.
87
88   extract text, ARGS => dates
89       Takes an arbitrary amount of text and extracts one or more dates from
90       it. The return value will be zero or more dates, which by default are
91       DateTime objects (but can be customized with the "format" argument). If
92       called in scalar context, only one will be returned, even if the
93       "returns" argument specifies multiple possible return values.
94
95       See the documentation of "new" for the configuration of this method.
96       Any arguments passed into this method will trump those from the
97       constructor.
98
99       You may reuse a parser for multiple calls to "extract".
100
101       You do not need to have an instantiated "Date::Extract" object to call
102       this method. Just "Date::Extract->extract($foo)" will work.
103

FORMATS HANDLED

105       •   today; tomorrow; yesterday
106
107       •   last Friday; next Monday; previous Sat
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109       •   Monday; Mon
110
111       •   November 13th, 1986; Nov 13, 1986
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113       •   13 November 1986; 13 Nov 1986
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115       •   November 13th; Nov 13
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117       •   13 Nov; 13th November
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119       •   1986/11/13; 1986-11-13
120
121       •   11-13-86; 11/13/1986
122

CAVEATS

124       This module is intentionally very simple. Surprises are not welcome
125       here.
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SEE ALSO

128       DateTime::Format::Natural, Time::ParseDate, Date::Manip
129

AUTHOR

131       Shawn M Moore, "<sartak at bestpractical dot com>"
132

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

134       Thanks to Steven Schubiger for writing the fine
135       DateTime::Format::Natural.  We still use it, but it doesn't quite fill
136       all the particular needs we have.
137

139       Copyright 2007-2009 Best Practical Solutions.
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141       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
142       under the same terms as Perl itself.
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146perl v5.36.0                      2022-07-22                  Date::Extract(3)
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