NAME

       Date::Format - Date formating subroutines

SYNOPSIS

               use Date::Format;

               @lt = localtime(time);

               print time2str($template, time);
               print strftime($template, @lt);

               print time2str($template, time, $zone);
               print strftime($template, @lt, $zone);

               print ctime(time);
               print asctime(@lt);

               print ctime(time, $zone);
               print asctime(@lt, $zone);

DESCRIPTION

       This module provides routines to format dates into ASCII strings. They correspond to the C
       library routines "strftime" and "ctime".

       time2str(TEMPLATE, TIME [, ZONE])
           "time2str" converts "TIME" into an ASCII string using the conversion specification
           given in "TEMPLATE". "ZONE" if given specifies the zone which the output is required
           to be in, "ZONE" defaults to your current zone.

       strftime(TEMPLATE, TIME [, ZONE])
           "strftime" is similar to "time2str" with the exception that the time is passed as an
           array, such as the array returned by "localtime".

       ctime(TIME [, ZONE])
           "ctime" calls "time2str" with the given arguments using the conversion specification
           "%a %b %e %T %Y\n"

       asctime(TIME [, ZONE])
           "asctime" calls "time2str" with the given arguments using the conversion specification
           "%a %b %e %T %Y\n"

MULTI-LANGUAGE SUPPORT

       Date::Format is capable of formating into several languages by creating a language
       specific object and calling methods, see Date::Language

               my $lang = Date::Language->new('German');
               $lang->time2str("%a %b %e %T %Y\n", time);

       I am open to suggestions on this.

CONVERSION SPECIFICATION

       Each conversion specification  is  replaced  by  appropriate characters   as   described
       in  the  following  list.   The appropriate  characters  are  determined  by   the
       LC_TIME category of the program's locale.

               %%      PERCENT
               %a      day of the week abbr
               %A      day of the week
               %b      month abbr
               %B      month
               %c      MM/DD/YY HH:MM:SS
               %C      ctime format: Sat Nov 19 21:05:57 1994
               %d      numeric day of the month, with leading zeros (eg 01..31)
               %e      like %d, but a leading zero is replaced by a space (eg  1..32)
               %D      MM/DD/YY
               %G      GPS week number (weeks since January 6, 1980)
               %h      month abbr
               %H      hour, 24 hour clock, leading 0's)
               %I      hour, 12 hour clock, leading 0's)
               %j      day of the year
               %k      hour
               %l      hour, 12 hour clock
               %L      month number, starting with 1
               %m      month number, starting with 01
               %M      minute, leading 0's
               %n      NEWLINE
               %o      ornate day of month -- "1st", "2nd", "25th", etc.
               %p      AM or PM
               %P      am or pm (Yes %p and %P are backwards :)
               %q      Quarter number, starting with 1
               %r      time format: 09:05:57 PM
               %R      time format: 21:05
               %s      seconds since the Epoch, UCT
               %S      seconds, leading 0's
               %t      TAB
               %T      time format: 21:05:57
               %U      week number, Sunday as first day of week
               %w      day of the week, numerically, Sunday == 0
               %W      week number, Monday as first day of week
               %x      date format: 11/19/94
               %X      time format: 21:05:57
               %y      year (2 digits)
               %Y      year (4 digits)
               %Z      timezone in ascii. eg: PST
               %z      timezone in format -/+0000

       %d, %e, %H, %I, %j, %k, %l, %m, %M, %q, %y and %Y can be output in Roman numerals by
       prefixing the letter with "O", e.g. %OY will output the year as roman numerals.

LIMITATION

       The functions in this module are limited to the time range that can be represented by the
       time_t data type, i.e. 1901-12-13 20:45:53 GMT to 2038-01-19 03:14:07 GMT.

AUTHOR

       Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 1995-2009 Graham Barr. This program is free software; you can redistribute
       it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.