NAME
DateTimeX::Easy - Parse a date/time string using the best method
available
VERSION
Version 0.087
SYNOPSIS
# Make DateTimeX object for "now":
my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("today");
# Same thing:
my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("now");
# Uses ::F::Natural's coolness (similar in capability to Date::Manip)
my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last monday");
# ... but in 1969:
my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last monday", year => 1969);
# ... at the 100th nanosecond:
my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last monday", year => 1969, nanosecond => 100);
# ... in US/Eastern: (This will NOT do a timezone conversion)
my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last monday", year => 1969, nanosecond => 100, timezone => "US/Eastern");
# This WILL do a proper timezone conversion:
my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last monday", year => 1969, nanosecond => 100, timezone => "US/Pacific");
$dt->set_time_zone("US/Eastern");
# Custom DateTimeX ability:
my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last second of last month");
$dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last second of first month of last year");
$dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last second of first month of 2000");
DESCRIPTION
DateTimeX::Easy makes DateTime object creation quick and easy. It uses a
variety of DateTime::Format packages to do the bulk of the parsing, with
some custom tweaks to smooth out the rough edges (mainly concerning
timezone detection and selection).
PARSING
Currently, DateTimeX::Easy will attempt to parse input in the following
order:
DateTime - Is the input a DateTime object?
ICal - Was DT::F::ICal able to parse the input?
DateParse - Was DT::F::DateParse able to parse the input?
A caveat, I actually use a modified version of DateParse in order to
avoid DateParse's default timezone selection.
Natural - Was DT::F::Natural able to parse the input?
Since this module barfs pretty loudly on strange input, we use a
silent $SIG{__WARN__} to hide errors.
Flexible - Was DT::F::Flexible able to parse the input?
This step also looks at the string to see if there is any timezone
information at the end.
DateManip - Was DT::F::DateManip able to parse the input?
DateManip isn't very nice with preserving the input timezone, but
it's here as a last resort.
"last second of first month of year of 2005"
DateTimeX::Easy also provides additional parsing and transformation for
input like:
"first day of last month"
"last day of last month"
"last day of this month"
"last day of next month"
"last second of first month of last year"
"ending day of month of 2007-10-02"
"last second of first month of year of 2005"
"last second of last month of year of 2005"
"beginning day of month of 2007-10-02"
"last month of year of 2007"
It will look at each sequence of "<first|last> of <period>" and do
->add, ->subtract, and ->truncate operations on the parsed DateTime
object
Also, It's best to be as explicit as possible; the following will work:
"last month of 2007"
"last second of last month of 2005"
"beginning day of 2007-10-02"
This won't, though:
"last day of 2007"
You'll have to do this instead:
"last day of year of 2007"
The reason is that the date portion is opaque to the parser. It doesn't
know whether it has "2007" or "2007-10" or "now" as the last input. To
fix this, you can give a hint to the parser, like "<period> of
<date/time>" (as in "year of 2007" above).
WARNING: This feature is still somewhat new, so there may be bugs
lurking about. Please forward failing tests/scenarios.
METHODS
DateTimeX::Easy->new( ... )
DateTimeX::Easy->parse( ... )
DateTimeX::Easy->parse_date( ... )
DateTimeX::Easy->parse_datetime( ... )
DateTimeX::Easy->date( ... )
DateTimeX::Easy->datetime( ... )
DateTimeX::Easy->new_date( ... )
DateTimeX::Easy->new_datetime( ... )
Parse the given date/time specification using ::F::Flexible or
::F::Natural and use the result to create a DateTime object. Returns a
DateTime object.
You can pass the following in:
parse # The string or DateTime object to parse.
year # A year to override the result of parsing
month # A month to override the result of parsing
day # A day to override the result of parsing
hour # A hour to override the result of parsing
minute # A minute to override the result of parsing
second # A second to override the result of parsing
truncate # A truncation parameter (e.g. year, day, month, week, etc.)
time_zone # - Can be:
timezone # * A timezone (e.g. US/Pacific, UTC, etc.)
tz # * A DateTime special timezone (e.g. floating, local)
#
# - If neither "tz", "timezone", nor "time_zone" is set, then it'll use whatever is parsed.
# - If no timezone is parsed, then the default is floating.
# - If the given timezone is different from the parsed timezone,
# then a time conversion will take place (unless "soft_time_zone_conversion" is set).
# - Either "time_zone", "timezone", "tz" will work (in that order), with "time_zone" having highest precedence
# - See below for examples!
soft_time_zone_conversion # Set this flag to 1 if you don't want the time to change when a given timezone is
# different from a parsed timezone. For example, "10:00 UTC" soft converted to
# PST8PDT would be "10:00 PST8PDT".
time_zone_if_floating # The value of this option should be a valid timezone. If this option is set, then a DateTime object
# with a floating timezone has it's timezone set to the value.
default_time_zone # Same as "time_zone_if_floating"
ambiguous # Set this flag to 0 if you want to disallow ambiguous input like:
# "last day of 2007" or "first minute of April"
# This will require you to specify them as "last day of year of 2007" and "first minute of month of April"
# instead. This flag is 1 (false) by default.
... and anything else that you want to pass to the DateTime->new constructor
If "truncate" is specificied, then DateTime->truncate will be run after
object creation.
Furthermore, you can simply pass the value for "parse" as the first
positional argument of the DateTimeX::Easy call, e.g.:
# This:
DateTimeX::Easy->new("today", year => 2008, truncate => "hour");
# ... is the same as this:
DateTimeX::Easy->new(parse => "today", year => 2008, truncate => "hour");
Timezone processing can be a little complicated. Here are some examples:
DateTimeX::Easy->parse("today"); # Will use a floating timezone
DateTimeX::Easy->parse("2007-07-01 10:32:10"); # Will ALSO use a floating timezone
DateTimeX::Easy->parse("2007-07-01 10:32:10 US/Eastern"); # Will use US/Eastern as a timezone
DateTimeX::Easy->parse("2007-07-01 10:32:10"); # Will use the floating timezone
DateTimeX::Easy->parse("2007-07-01 10:32:10", time_zone_if_floating => "local"); # Will use the local timezone
DateTimeX::Easy->parse("2007-07-01 10:32:10 UTC", time_zone => "US/Pacific"); # Will convert from UTC to US/Pacific
my $dt = DateTime->now->set_time_zone("US/Eastern");
DateTimeX::Easy->parse($dt); # Will use US/Eastern as the timezone
DateTimeX::Easy->parse($dt, time_zone => "floating"); # Will use a floating timezone
DateTimeX::Easy->parse($dt, time_zone => "US/Pacific", soft_time_zone_conversion => 1);
# Will use US/Pacific as the timezone with NO conversion
# For example, "22:00 US/Eastern" will become "22:00 PST8PDT"
DateTimeX::Easy->parse($dt)->set_time_zone("US/Pacific"); # Will use US/Pacific as the timezone WITH conversion
# For example, "22:00 US/Eastern" will become "19:00 PST8PDT"
DateTimeX::Easy->parse($dt, time_zone => "US/Pacific"); # Will ALSO use US/Pacific as the timezone WITH conversion
EXPORT
parse( ... )
parse_date( ... )
parse_datetime( ... )
date( ... )
datetime( ... )
new_date( ... )
new_datetime( ... )
Same syntax as above. See above for more information.
MOTIVATION
Although I really like using DateTime for date/time handling, I was
often frustrated by its inability to parse even the simplest of
date/time strings. There does exist a wide variety of
DateTime::Format::* modules, but they all have different interfaces and
different capabilities. Coming from a Date::Manip background, I wanted
something that gave me the power of ParseDate while still returning a
DateTime object. Most importantly, I wanted explicit control of the
timezone setting at every step of the way. DateTimeX::Easy is the
result.
THANKS
Dave Rolsky and crew for writing DateTime
SEE ALSO
DateTime
DateTime::Format::Natural
DateTime::Format::Flexible
DateTime::Format::DateManip
DateTime::Format::ParseDate
DateTime::Format::ICal
Date::Manip
AUTHOR
Robert Krimen, "<rkrimen at cpan.org>"
SOURCE
You can contribute or fork this project via GitHub:
<http://github.com/robertkrimen/datetimex-easy/tree/master>
git clone git://github.com/robertkrimen/datetimex-easy.git DateTimeX-Easy
BUGS
Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-datetime-easy at
rt.cpan.org", or through the web interface at
<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=DateTimeX-Easy>. I will
be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on
your bug as I make changes.
SUPPORT
You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.
perldoc DateTimeX::Easy
You can also look for information at:
* RT: CPAN's request tracker
<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=DateTimeX-Easy>
* AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation
<http://annocpan.org/dist/DateTimeX-Easy>
* CPAN Ratings
<http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/DateTimeX-Easy>
* Search CPAN
<http://search.cpan.org/dist/DateTimeX-Easy>
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
COPYRIGHT & LICENSE
Copyright 2007 Robert Krimen, all rights reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
) is private.
