Formating dates in Perl

Hi there

I am having a little trouble with dates and was hoping somebody could steer me in the right direction.

Currently I am using

$mday = localtime(time);

which gives me a reult of
Wed Dec 6 10:39:19 2000

How would I go about changing this to

6/12/2000

Any help would be appreciated

Don't just use $mday. Here is an example from one of my old scripts:

sub get_date {
$timeoffset = "0";
($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime(time + (3600*$timeoffset));
if ($sec < 10) {
$sec = "0$sec";
}
if ($min < 10) {
$min = "0$min";
}
if ($hour < 10) {
$hour = "0$hour";
}
if ($mday < 10) {
$mday = "0$mday";
}
if ($mon < 10) {
$mon = "0$mon";
}
$year_length = length $year;
if ($year_length == 3) {
$year = substr($year,1);
}
$month = ($mon + 1);
if ($month < 10) {
$month = "0$month";
}
@months = ("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug","Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec");
$long_date = "$hour:$min:$sec $months[$mon] $mday, 20$year";
chop($long_date) if ($long_date =~ /n$/);
chop($mday) if ($mday =~ /n$/);
chop($month) if ($month =~ /n$/);
chop($year) if ($year =~ /n$/);
}

As you can see, you can customize the output to your liking.

This sub routine is more standardized. That is, you can use it to convert into any format.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">code:</font><HR><pre>
## CONVERT_TIME(<timestring>,[timeval])
sub convert_time {
undef $timestring;
my $timestring = $_[0];
if ($_[1]) { $ctime = $_[1]; }
else { $ctime = time(); }
@days = ('Sunday','Monday','Tuesday','Wednesday','Thursday','Friday','Saturday');
@months = ('January','February','March','April','May','June','July','August','September','October','November', 'December');

($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime($ctime);

if ($hour < 10) { $timeHH = "0$hour"; } else { $timeHH = $hour; }
$timeH = $hour;
if ($hour > 12) { $newhour = $hour - 12; } else { $newhour = $hour; }
if ($newhour == 0) { $newhour = 12; }
if ($newhour < 10) { $timehh = "0$newhour"; } else { $timehh = $newhour; }
$timeh = $newhour;
if ($min < 10) { $timeNN = "0$min"; } else { $timeNN = $min; }
$timeN = $min;
if ($sec < 10) { $timeSS = "0$sec"; } else { $timeSS = $sec; }
$timeS = $sec;
$timeYY = substr(1900+$year,2,2);
$timeYYYY = 1900+$year;
$timeMMMM = $months[$mon];
$timeMMM = substr($timeMMMM,0,3);
$mon++;
if ($mon < 10) { $timeMM = "0$mon"; } else { $timeMM = $mon; }
$timeDDDD = $days[$wday];
$timeDDD = substr($timeDDDD,0,3);
if ($mday < 10) { $timeDD = "0$mday"; } else { $timeDD = $mday; }
if ($hour > 12) { $ampm = "pm"; } else { $ampm = "am"; }

$timestring =~ s/HH/$timeHH/g;
$timestring =~ s/hh/$timehh/g;
$timestring =~ s/H/$timeH/g;
$timestring =~ s/h/$timeh/g;
$timestring =~ s/nn/$timeNN/gi;
$timestring =~ s/n/$timeN/gi;
$timestring =~ s/ss/$timeSS/gi;
$timestring =~ s/s/$timeS/gi;
$timestring =~ s/yyyy/$timeYYYY/gi;
$timestring =~ s/yy/$timeYY/gi;
$timestring =~ s/mmmm/$timeMMMM/gi;
$timestring =~ s/mmm/$timeMMM/gi;
$timestring =~ s/mm/$timeMM/gi;
$timestring =~ s/dddd/$timeDDDD/gi;
$timestring =~ s/ddd/$timeDDD/gi;
$timestring =~ s/dd/$timeDD/gi;
$timestring =~ s/TT/U$ampmE/g;
$timestring =~ s/tt/$ampm/g;
$timestring =~ s/zz/CST/g;

return $timestring;
}
[/code]

Use it like this:
$time=&convert_time("dd/mm/yyyy");
or
$time=&convert_time("dd/mm/yyyy",$unixtime);
if you have a specific time string you want converted (time());

And don't use the chop command if you're just trying to get new lines off the end. Use chomp(). That way you wont have to check if it had a n at the end.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by chrisdice4:

How would I go about changing this to
6/12/2000[/quote]

Here's what I use:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">code:</font><HR><pre>
#=======================================================================
# time2date() - convert time() value to date string
#
# usage: $time = time2date($time,'lt');
# where $time is a valid time() value
# 'l' is optional and indicates 'long' format
# 't' is optional and directs sub to append a time val
#
# long format: Wednesday, January 1, 2001
# default: 01/01/2001

sub time2date {
my ($time,$format) = @_;
my ($timestr,$longdate,$shortdate);

my @day = qw(Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday);
my @mon = qw(January February March April May June July August
September October November December);

my $i = 0;
my %wdays = map { substr($_,0,3) => $_ } @day;
my %month = map { substr($_,0,3) => $_ } @mon;
my %dmnum = map { substr($_,0,3) => ++$i } @mon;

# prepend '0' to 0-9 months
map {
substr($dmnum{$_},0,0) = '0' if length($dmnum{$_}) == 1
} (keys %dmnum);

# date string -- Monday, May 25, 2012
$longdate = scalar localtime($time);
$longdate =~ s{(w+)s+(w+)s+(d+)s+([d:]+)s+(d+)}
{$wdays{$1}, $month{$2} $3, $5}g;
my $wday = $3;

# time val -- 04:13:52 p.m.
my ($h,$m,$s) = split /:/, $4, 3;
my $ampm = $h < 12 ? 'a.m.' : 'p.m.';
$h -= 12 if $h > 12;
$h += 12 if $h == 0;
substr($h,0,0) = '0' if length($h) == 1;
$timestr = join(':',$h,$m,$s) . " $ampm";

# date number -- 5/25/2012
$shortdate = join('/',$dmnum{$2},$wday,$5);

if ($format =~ m{t}i) {
for ($longdate,$shortdate) { $_ .= ' ' . $timestr; }
}
return ($format =~ m{l}i) ? $longdate : $shortdate;
}
[/code]

Hi there

Thank you all for your responses, I am going to go through each of them.