#NAME

Template::Plugin::Date - Plugin to generate formatted date strings

#SYNOPSIS

[% USE date %]

# use current time and default format
[% date.format %]

# specify time as seconds since epoch
# or as a 'h:m:s d-m-y' or 'y-m-d h:m:s' string
[% date.format(960973980) %]
[% date.format('4:20:36 21/12/2000') %]
[% date.format('2000/12/21 4:20:36') %]

# specify format
[% date.format(mytime, '%H:%M:%S') %]

# specify locale
[% date.format(date.now, '%a %d %b %y', 'en_GB') %]

# named parameters
[% date.format(mytime, format = '%H:%M:%S') %]
[% date.format(locale = 'en_GB') %]
[% date.format(time       = date.now,
               format     = '%H:%M:%S',
               locale     = 'en_GB'
               use_offset = 1) %]

# specify default format to plugin
[% USE date(format = '%H:%M:%S', locale = 'de_DE') %]

[% date.format %]
...

#DESCRIPTION

The Date plugin provides an easy way to generate formatted time and date strings by delegating to the POSIX strftime() routine.

The plugin can be loaded via the familiar USE directive.

[% USE date %]

This creates a plugin object with the default name of 'date'. An alternate name can be specified as such:

[% USE myname = date %]

The plugin provides the format() method which accepts a time value, a format string and a locale name. All of these parameters are optional with the current system time, default format ('%H:%M:%S %d-%b-%Y') and current locale being used respectively, if undefined. Default values for the time, format and/or locale may be specified as named parameters in the USE directive.

[% USE date(format = '%a %d-%b-%Y', locale = 'fr_FR') %]

When called without any parameters, the format() method returns a string representing the current system time, formatted by strftime() according to the default format and for the default locale (which may not be the current one, if locale is set in the USE directive).

[% date.format %]

The plugin allows a time/date to be specified as seconds since the epoch, as is returned by time().

File last modified: [% date.format(filemod_time) %]

The time/date can also be specified as a string of the form h:m:s d/m/y or y/m/d h:m:s. Any of the characters : / - or space may be used to delimit fields.

[% USE day = date(format => '%A', locale => 'en_GB') %]
[% day.format('4:20:00 9-13-2000') %]

Output:

Tuesday

A format string can also be passed to the format() method, and a locale specification may follow that.

[% date.format(filemod, '%d-%b-%Y') %]
[% date.format(filemod, '%d-%b-%Y', 'en_GB') %]

A fourth parameter allows you to force output in GMT, in the case of seconds-since-the-epoch input:

[% date.format(filemod, '%d-%b-%Y', 'en_GB', 1) %]

Note that in this case, if the local time is not GMT, then also specifying '%Z' (time zone) in the format parameter will lead to an extremely misleading result.

To maintain backwards compatibility, using the %z placeholder in the format string (to output the UTC offset) currently requires the use_offset parameter to be set to a true value. This can also be passed as the fifth parameter to format (but the former will probably be clearer).

Any or all of these parameters may be named. Positional parameters should always be in the order ($time, $format, $locale).

[% date.format(format => '%H:%M:%S') %]
[% date.format(time => filemod, format => '%H:%M:%S') %]
[% date.format(mytime, format => '%H:%M:%S') %]
[% date.format(mytime, format => '%H:%M:%S', locale => 'fr_FR') %]
[% date.format(mytime, format => '%H:%M:%S', gmt => 1) %]
...etc...

The now() method returns the current system time in seconds since the epoch.

[% date.format(date.now, '%A') %]

The calc() method can be used to create an interface to the Date::Calc module (if installed on your system).

[% calc = date.calc %]
[% calc.Monday_of_Week(22, 2001).join('/') %]

The manip() method can be used to create an interface to the Date::Manip module (if installed on your system).

[% manip = date.manip %]
[% manip.UnixDate("Noon Yesterday","%Y %b %d %H:%M") %]

#AUTHORS

Thierry-Michel Barral wrote the original plugin.

Andy Wardley provided some minor fixups/enhancements, a test script and documentation.

Mark D. Mills cloned Date::Manip from the Date::Calc sub-plugin.

#COPYRIGHT

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

#SEE ALSO