HTTP::Date(3)                                  User Contributed Perl Documentation                                 HTTP::Date(3)



NAME
       HTTP::Date - date conversion routines

SYNOPSIS
        use HTTP::Date;

        $string = time2str($time);    # Format as GMT ASCII time
        $time = str2time($string);    # convert ASCII date to machine time

DESCRIPTION
       This module provides functions that deal the date formats used by the HTTP protocol (and then some more).  Only the first
       two functions, time2str() and str2time(), are exported by default.

       time2str( [$time] )
           The time2str() function converts a machine time (seconds since epoch) to a string.  If the function is called without
           an argument or with an undefined argument, it will use the current time.

           The string returned is in the format preferred for the HTTP protocol.  This is a fixed length subset of the format
           defined by RFC 1123, represented in Universal Time (GMT).  An example of a time stamp in this format is:

              Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT

       str2time( $str [, $zone] )
           The str2time() function converts a string to machine time.  It returns "undef" if the format of $str is unrecognized,
           otherwise whatever the "Time::Local" functions can make out of the parsed time.  Dates before the system's epoch may
           not work on all operating systems.  The time formats recognized are the same as for parse_date().

           The function also takes an optional second argument that specifies the default time zone to use when converting the
           date.  This parameter is ignored if the zone is found in the date string itself.  If this parameter is missing, and
           the date string format does not contain any zone specification, then the local time zone is assumed.

           If the zone is not ""GMT"" or numerical (like ""-0800"" or "+0100"), then the "Time::Zone" module must be installed
           in order to get the date recognized.

       parse_date( $str )
           This function will try to parse a date string, and then return it as a list of numerical values followed by a
           (possible undefined) time zone specifier; ($year, $month, $day, $hour, $min, $sec, $tz).  The $year returned will not
           have the number 1900 subtracted from it and the $month numbers start with 1.

           In scalar context the numbers are interpolated in a string of the "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss TZ"-format and returned.

           If the date is unrecognized, then the empty list is returned.

           The function is able to parse the following formats:

            "Wed, 09 Feb 1994 22:23:32 GMT"       -- HTTP format
            "Thu Feb  3 17:03:55 GMT 1994"        -- ctime(3) format
            "Thu Feb  3 00:00:00 1994",           -- ANSI C asctime() format
            "Tuesday, 08-Feb-94 14:15:29 GMT"     -- old rfc850 HTTP format
            "Tuesday, 08-Feb-1994 14:15:29 GMT"   -- broken rfc850 HTTP format

            "03/Feb/1994:17:03:55 -0700"   -- common logfile format
            "09 Feb 1994 22:23:32 GMT"     -- HTTP format (no weekday)
            "08-Feb-94 14:15:29 GMT"       -- rfc850 format (no weekday)
            "08-Feb-1994 14:15:29 GMT"     -- broken rfc850 format (no weekday)

            "1994-02-03 14:15:29 -0100"    -- ISO 8601 format
            "1994-02-03 14:15:29"          -- zone is optional
            "1994-02-03"                   -- only date
            "1994-02-03T14:15:29"          -- Use T as separator
            "19940203T141529Z"             -- ISO 8601 compact format
            "19940203"                     -- only date

            "08-Feb-94"         -- old rfc850 HTTP format    (no weekday, no time)
            "08-Feb-1994"       -- broken rfc850 HTTP format (no weekday, no time)
            "09 Feb 1994"       -- proposed new HTTP format  (no weekday, no time)
            "03/Feb/1994"       -- common logfile format     (no time, no offset)

            "Feb  3  1994"      -- Unix 'ls -l' format
            "Feb  3 17:03"      -- Unix 'ls -l' format

            "11-15-96  03:52PM" -- Windows 'dir' format

           The parser ignores leading and trailing whitespace.  It also allow the seconds to be missing and the month to be
           numerical in most formats.

           If the year is missing, then we assume that the date is the first matching date before current month.  If the year is
           given with only 2 digits, then parse_date() will select the century that makes the year closest to the current date.

       time2iso( [$time] )
           Same as time2str(), but returns a "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss"-formatted string representing time in the local time zone.

       time2isoz( [$time] )
           Same as time2str(), but returns a "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ssZ"-formatted string representing Universal Time.

SEE ALSO
       "time" in perlfunc, Time::Zone

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright 1995-1999, Gisle Aas

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



perl v5.12.4                                               2009-10-03                                              HTTP::Date(3)