NAME

DateTime::Format::Strptime - Parse and format strp and strf time patterns

VERSION

version 1.75

SYNOPSIS

use DateTime::Format::Strptime;

my $strp = DateTime::Format::Strptime->new(
    pattern   => '%T',
    locale    => 'en_AU',
    time_zone => 'Australia/Melbourne',
);

my $dt = $strp->parse_datetime('23:16:42');

$strp->format_datetime($dt);

# 23:16:42

# Croak when things go wrong:
my $strp = DateTime::Format::Strptime->new(
    pattern   => '%T',
    locale    => 'en_AU',
    time_zone => 'Australia/Melbourne',
    on_error  => 'croak',
);

# Do something else when things go wrong:
my $strp = DateTime::Format::Strptime->new(
    pattern   => '%T',
    locale    => 'en_AU',
    time_zone => 'Australia/Melbourne',
    on_error  => \&phone_police,
);

DESCRIPTION

This module implements most of strptime(3), the POSIX function that is the reverse of strftime(3), for DateTime. While strftime takes a DateTime and a pattern and returns a string, strptime takes a string and a pattern and returns the DateTime object associated.

METHODS

This class offers the following methods.

DateTime::Format::Strptime->new(%args)

This methods creates a new object. It accepts the following arguments:

• pattern

  This is the pattern to use for parsing. This is required.

• strict

  This is a boolean which disables or enables strict matching mode.

  By default, this module turns your pattern into a regex that will match anywhere in a string. So given the pattern %Y%m%d%H%M%S it will match a string like 20161214233712Z. However, this also means that a this pattern will match any string that contains 14 or more numbers! This behavior can be very surprising.

  If you enable strict mode, then the generated regex is wrapped in boundary checks of the form /(?:\A|\b)...(?:\b|\z_/). These checks ensure that the pattern will only match when at the beginning or end of a string, or when it is separated by other text with a word boundary (\w versus \W).

  By default, strict mode is off. This is done for backwards compatibility. Future releases may turn it on by default, as it produces less surprising behavior in many cases.

  Because the default may change in the future, you are strongly encouraged to explicitly set this when constructing all DateTime::Format::Strptime objects.

• time_zone

  The default time zone to use for objects returned from parsing.

• zone_map

  Some time zone abbreviations are ambiguous (e.g. PST, EST, EDT). By default, the parser will die when it parses an ambiguous abbreviation. You may specify a zone_map parameter as a hashref to map zone abbreviations however you like:

  zone_map => { PST => '-0800', EST => '-0600' }
  

  Note that you can also override non-ambiguous mappings if you want to as well.

• locale

  The locale to use for objects returned from parsing.

• on_error

  This can be one of 'undef' (the string, not an undef), 'croak', or a subroutine reference.

  • 'undef'

    This is the default behavior. The module will return undef on errors. The error can be accessed using the $object->errmsg method. This is the ideal behaviour for interactive use where a user might provide an illegal pattern or a date that doesn't match the pattern.

  • 'croak'

    The module will croak with an error message on errors.

  • sub{...} or \&subname

    When given a code ref, the module will call that sub on errors. The sub receives two parameters: the object and the error message.

    If your sub does not die, then the formatter will continue on as if on_error was 'undef'.

$strptime->parse_datetime($string)

Given a string in the pattern specified in the constructor, this method will return a new DateTime object.

If given a string that doesn't match the pattern, the formatter will croak or return undef, depending on the setting of on_error in the constructor.

$strptime->format_datetime($datetime)

Given a DateTime object, this methods returns a string formatted in the object's format. This method is synonymous with DateTime's strftime method.

$strptime->locale

This method returns the locale passed to the object's constructor.

$strptime->pattern

This method returns the pattern passed to the object's constructor.

$strptime->time_zone

This method returns the time zone passed to the object's constructor.

$strptime->errmsg

If the on_error behavior of the object is 'undef', you can retrieve error messages with this method so you can work out why things went wrong.

EXPORTS

These subs are available as optional exports.

strptime( $strptime_pattern, $string )

Given a pattern and a string this function will return a new DateTime object.

strftime( $strftime_pattern, $datetime )

Given a pattern and a DateTime object this function will return a formatted string.

STRPTIME PATTERN TOKENS

The following tokens are allowed in the pattern string for strptime (parse_datetime):

• %%

  The % character.

• %a or %A

  The weekday name according to the given locale, in abbreviated form or the full name.

• %b or %B or %h

  The month name according to the given locale, in abbreviated form or the full name.

• %c

  The datetime format according to the given locale.

• %C

  The century number (0-99).

• %d or %e

  The day of month (01-31). This will parse single digit numbers as well.

• %D

  Equivalent to %m/%d/%y. (This is the American style date, very confusing to non-Americans, especially since %d/%m/%y is widely used in Europe. The ISO 8601 standard pattern is %F.)

• %F

  Equivalent to %Y-%m-%d. (This is the ISO style date)

• %g

  The year corresponding to the ISO week number, but without the century (0-99).

• %G

  The 4-digit year corresponding to the ISO week number.

• %H

  The hour (00-23). This will parse single digit numbers as well.

• %I

  The hour on a 12-hour clock (1-12).

• %j

  The day number in the year (1-366).

• %m

  The month number (01-12). This will parse single digit numbers as well.

• %M

  The minute (00-59). This will parse single digit numbers as well.

• %n

  Arbitrary whitespace.

• %N

  Nanoseconds. For other sub-second values use %[number]N.

• %p or %P

  The equivalent of AM or PM according to the locale in use. See DateTime::Locale.

• %r

  Equivalent to %I:%M:%S %p.

• %R

  Equivalent to %H:%M.

• %s

  Number of seconds since the Epoch.

• %S

  The second (0-60; 60 may occur for leap seconds. See DateTime::LeapSecond).

• %t

  Arbitrary whitespace.

• %T

  Equivalent to %H:%M:%S.

• %U

  The week number with Sunday the first day of the week (0-53). The first Sunday of January is the first day of week 1.

• %u

  The weekday number (1-7) with Monday = 1. This is the DateTime standard.

• %w

  The weekday number (0-6) with Sunday = 0.

• %W

  The week number with Monday the first day of the week (0-53). The first Monday of January is the first day of week 1.

• %x

  The date format according to the given locale.

• %X

  The time format according to the given locale.

• %y

  The year within century (0-99). When a century is not otherwise specified (with a value for %C), values in the range 69-99 refer to years in the twentieth century (1969-1999); values in the range 00-68 refer to years in the twenty-first century (2000-2068).

• %Y

  A 4-digit year, including century (for example, 1991).

• %z

  An RFC-822/ISO 8601 standard time zone specification. (For example +1100) [See note below]

• %Z

  The timezone name. (For example EST -- which is ambiguous) [See note below]

• %O

  This extended token allows the use of Olson Time Zone names to appear in parsed strings. NOTE: This pattern cannot be passed to DateTime's strftime() method, but can be passed to format_datetime().

AUTHOR EMERITUS

This module was created by Rick Measham.

SEE ALSO

datetime@perl.org mailing list.

http://datetime.perl.org/

perl, DateTime, DateTime::TimeZone, DateTime::Locale

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-datetime-format-strptime@rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

Bugs may be submitted at https://github.com/houseabsolute/DateTime-Format-Strptime/issues.

There is a mailing list available for users of this distribution, mailto:datetime@perl.org.

I am also usually active on IRC as 'autarch' on irc://irc.perl.org.

SOURCE

The source code repository for DateTime-Format-Strptime can be found at https://github.com/houseabsolute/DateTime-Format-Strptime.

DONATIONS

If you'd like to thank me for the work I've done on this module, please consider making a "donation" to me via PayPal. I spend a lot of free time creating free software, and would appreciate any support you'd care to offer.

Please note that I am not suggesting that you must do this in order for me to continue working on this particular software. I will continue to do so, inasmuch as I have in the past, for as long as it interests me.

Similarly, a donation made in this way will probably not make me work on this software much more, unless I get so many donations that I can consider working on free software full time (let's all have a chuckle at that together).

To donate, log into PayPal and send money to autarch@urth.org, or use the button at http://www.urth.org/~autarch/fs-donation.html.

AUTHORS

• Dave Rolsky autarch@urth.org
• Rick Measham rickm@cpan.org

CONTRIBUTORS

• Christian Hansen chansen@cpan.org
• D. Ilmari Mannsåker ilmari.mannsaker@net-a-porter.com
• key-amb yasutake.kiyoshi@gmail.com
• Mohammad S Anwar mohammad.anwar@yahoo.com

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is Copyright (c) 2015 - 2017 by Dave Rolsky.

This is free software, licensed under:

The Artistic License 2.0 (GPL Compatible)

The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this distribution.