Being able to manipulate dates and times is a basic capability for most programming languages, and Perl is no exception. However, when encountering more complex processing related to time, Perl's own functions often seem overwhelmed. In this case, it is a good idea to go to the Perl Comprehensive Collection Network (CPAN) to see it. There are many ready-to-use Perl modules to allow developers to effectively operate date and time. It's worth taking some time to browse this website to see if you can find something that can be used in your next project.
This article lists the 10 most interesting modules on Perl CPAN to manipulate dates and times, laying the foundation for your next conversion time zone and calculating the number of seconds between two timestamps, and now let's take a look at them.
Note: You can install the CPAN module directly from the Internet according to the methods provided below.
Date::Manip
This module is called the "Swiss Army Knife" of the date control module. It provides routines that can be used to analyze and compare dates, extract date information, determine date information, determine date/time bias, use repeated dates and times, and use dates in different languages, etc. But it runs slower than other more professional modules.
Use this module when you need a general date control module and don't care about performance.
DateTime
This module is part of Perl's DateTime project, which provides a base class to "represent a combination of dates/times". It is the most convenient way to create a custom date object and includes modules for analyzing, formatting, calculating durations and manipulating time zones.
Generally speaking, when you need to localize or define a custom storage container for time information, you want to use this module as creating a new date-related object.
Time::Format
This module is unrivaled when it comes to reformatting date and time values - it supports a lot of formatting code and can dramatically change the appearance of date and time. It accepts both the DateTime object and the Date::Manip string, and also provides an interface to the POSIX strftime() function for the added control.
Use this module when you need to format date and time values (usually before displaying them to the application user).
Time::Interval
This module is very useful for processing time intervals. It provides routines that calculate the total number of days, hours, minutes, and seconds between two timestamps. It can also easily convert duration into different time units such as seconds, hours, or minutes.
Use this module when you need to calculate the time elapsed between two date values.
Date::Convert
The routines provided by this module are used to convert between different date formats (Gregorian calendar, Julian calendar, Jewish calendar, Islamic calendar and Absolute calendar). It also provides hooks for easy expansion to new calendar formats.
Use this module when you need to convert from one calendar format to another.
Benchmark
This module allows you to run the same piece of code multiple times, calculate the time of each run and return the average obtained. It can also be used to see how many times a code block can run in a fixed time window.
Use this module when performing performance benchmarks, measuring how quickly a block of code runs, and collecting accurate readings to guide you on optimization.
Time::Normalize
The routine provided by this module is used to format arbitrary date and time values into a unified, standard representation, which can then be used for calculation or storage. It error checks the input and returns the independent time and/or date components in a clear format.
Use this module when you suspect that the entered date is incorrect and need to "clean up" it before using it in the database or application.
Regexp::Common::time
This module creates regular expressions that can be used to analyze dates and times. It supports capturing date patterns from string values using both precise rules and complex fuzzy logic.
Use this module to identify and extract date information from easily understood strings and convert it into a machine-readable format (eg ISO 8601).
MySQL::DateFormat
This module provides routines that convert dates and numbers back and forth between MySQL's YYYY-MM-DD format and a string that is easy to understand. This module is very useful when retrieving/adding records containing date information from/to the MySQL database.
To display it in a more readable way, or to modify the user-provided date value before inserting it into the MySQL database, you can use this module to reformat the date/time string of MySQL.
Net::Time
This module provides a client interface for retrieving date and time information from a remote client. This is especially useful if your application wants to always make sure that the current date and time is known to ensure that the system is not snooped by hackers.
Use this module when retrieving date/time strings from remote hosts over TCP network.
Example of usage:
Obtain information about a certain date and time
Method 1
use POSIX qw(strftime);
localtime(time() - 24*60*60)
strftime "%Y%m%d%k%M%S",localtime $^T;
Method 2
use 5.010;
use POSIX qw(strftime);
# These are core modules in Perl 5.10 and newer
use Time::Piece;
use Time::Seconds;
my $yesterday = localtime() - ONE_DAY;
say $yesterday->strftime('%b %d %Y');