Provided by: libdate-holidays-de-perl_1.9-2_all 
NAME
Date::Holidays::DE - Determine German holidays
SYNOPSIS
use Date::Holidays::DE qw(holidays);
my $feiertage_ref = holidays();
my @feiertage = @$feiertage_ref;
DESCRIPTION
This module exports a single function named holidays() which returns a list of German holidays in a given
year.
KNOWN HOLIDAYS
The module knows about the following holidays:
neuj Neujahr New Year's day
hl3k Hl. 3 Koenige Epiphany
weib Weiberfastnacht Fat Thursday
romo Rosenmontag Carnival monday
fadi Faschingsdienstag Shrove tuesday
asmi Aschermittwoch Ash wednesday
grdo Gruendonnerstag Maundy Thursday
karf Karfreitag Good friday
kars Karsamstag Holy Saturday
osts Ostersonntag Easter sunday
ostm Ostermontag Easter monday
pfis Pfingstsonntag Whit sunday
pfim Pfingstmontag Whit monday
himm Himmelfahrtstag Ascension day
fron Fronleichnam Corpus christi
1mai Maifeiertag Labor day, German style
17ju Tag der deutschen Einheit Reunion day (>= 1954, <= 1990)
frie Augsburger Friedensfest Augsburg peace day
mari Mariae Himmelfahrt Assumption day
3okt Tag der deutschen Einheit Reunion day (>= 1990)
refo Reformationstag Reformation day
alhe Allerheiligen All hallows day
buss Buss- und Bettag Penance day
votr Volkstrauertag Remembrance Day, German Style
toso Totensonntag Sunday in commemoration of the dead
adv1 1. Advent 1st sunday in advent
adv2 2. Advent 2nd sunday in advent
adv3 3. Advent 3rd sunday in advent
adv4 4. Advent 4th sunday in advent
heil Heiligabend Christmas eve
wei1 1. Weihnachtstag Christmas
wei2 2. Weihnachtstag Christmas
silv Silvester New year's eve
Please refer to the module source for detailed information about how every holiday is calculated. Too
much detail would be far beyond the scope of this document, but it's not particularly hard once you've
found the date for Easter.
USAGE
OUTPUT FORMAT
The list returned by holidays() consists of UNIX-Style timestamps in seconds since The Epoch. You may
pass a strftime() style format string to get the dates in any format you desire:
my $feiertage_ref = holidays(FORMAT=>"%d.%m.%Y");
Here are a few examples to get you started:
FORMAT=>"%d.%m.%Y" 25.12.2001
FORMAT=>"%Y%m%d" 20011225
FORMAT=>"%a, %B %d" Tuesday, December 25
Please consult the manual page of strftime() for a complete list of available format definitions.
There is, however, one "proprietary" extension to the formats of strftime(): The format definition %#
will print the internal abbreviation used for each holiday.
FORMAT=>"%#:%d.%m" wei1:25.12.
As the module doesn't want to deal with i18n issues, you'll have to find your own way to translate the
aliases into your local language. See the example/feiertage.pl script included in the distribution to get
the idea. This was added in version 0.6.
LOCAL HOLIDAYS
The module also knows about different regulations throughout Germany.
When calling holidays(), the resulting list by default contains the list of Germany-wide holidays.
You can specify one ore more of the following federal states to get the list of holidays local to that
state:
bw Baden-Wuerttemberg
by Freistaat Bayern
be Berlin
bb Brandenburg
hb Freie Hansestadt Bremen
hh Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg
he Hessen
mv Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
ni Niedersachsen
nw Nordrhein-Westfalen
rp Rheinland-Pfalz
sl Saarland
sn Freistaat Sachsen
st Sachsen-Anhalt
sh Schleswig-Holstein
th Freistaat Thueringen
For example,
my $feiertage_ref = holidays(WHERE=>['by', 'bw']);
returns the list of holidays local to Bayern or Baden-Wuerttemberg.
To get the list of local holidays along with the default list of common German holidays, use the
following:
my $feiertage_ref = holidays(WHERE=>['common', 'bw']);
returns the list of common German holidays merged with the list of holidays specific to Baden-
Wuerttemberg.
You can also request a list containing all holidays this module knows about:
my $feiertage_ref = holidays(WHERE=>['all']);
will return a list of all known holidays. This was added in version 0.6.
ADDITIONAL HOLIDAYS
There are a number of holidays that aren't really holidays, e.g. New Year's Eve and Christmas Eve. These
aren't contained in the common set of holidays returned by the holidays() function. The aforementioned
silv and heil are probably the most likely ones that you'll need. If you live in Koeln, you'll probably
want to include romo and fadi, too. ;-)
As if things weren't bad enough already, there even are Holidays that aren't valid in an entire state.
This refers to fron, alhe and mari in particular.
If you want one or several of them to appear in the output from holidays(), use the following:
my $feiertage_ref = holidays(ADD=>['heil', 'silv']);
SPECIFYING THE YEAR
By default, holidays() returns the holidays for the current year. Specify a year as follows:
my $feiertage_ref = holidays(YEAR=>2004);
HOLIDAYS ON WEEKENDS
By default, holidays() includes Holidays that occur on weekends in its listing.
To disable this behaviour, set the WEEKENDS option to 0:
my $feiertage_ref = holidays(WEEKENDS=>0);
COMPLETE EXAMPLE
Get all holidays for Germany and Bayern in 2004, count New Year's Eve and Christmas Eve as Holidays.
Also, we live in a catholic region where Assumption day is a holiday, too. Exclude weekends and return
the date list in human readable format:
my $feiertage_ref = holidays( WHERE => ['common', 'he'],
FORMAT => "%a, %d.%m.%Y",
WEEKENDS => 0,
YEAR => 2004,
ADD => ['heil', 'silv', 'mari']);
PREREQUISITES
Uses Date::Calc 5.0 for all calculations. Makes use of the POSIX and Time::Local modules from the
standard Perl distribution.
BUGS & SUGGESTIONS
If you run into a miscalculation, need some sort of feature or an additional holiday, or if you know of
any new changes to our funky holiday situation, please drop the author a note.
Patches are welcome. If you can, please fork the project on github to submit your change:
http://github.com/mschmitt/Date-Holidays-DE
Tag der Deutschen Einheit was moved from June 17th to October 3rd in 1990 and is therefore listed twice
when calculating holidays for 1990. This is not a bug. Awareness for this was introduced in Version 1.1.
OFFICIAL HOLIDAY INFORMATION
The German Federal Ministry of the Interior used to publish a comprehensive list of holiday dates. This
does currently not appear to be the case.
A list of holidays per state is available at:
http://www.bmi.bund.de/cae/servlet/contentblob/150560/publicationFile/13610/feiertage_de.pdf
LIMITATIONS
Date::Calc works with year, month and day numbers exclusively. Even though this module uses Date::Calc
for all calculations, it represents the calculated holidays as UNIX timestamps (seconds since The Epoch)
to allow for more flexible formatting. This limits the range of years to work on to the years from 1972
to 2037.
Historic regulations for Buss- und Bettag are still not implemented.
Date::Holidays::DE is not configurable. Holiday changes don't come over night and a new module release
can be rolled out within a single day.
AUTHOR
Martin Schmitt <mas at scsy dot de>
SEE ALSO
perl, Date::Calc.