NAME

       Date::Manip - Date manipulation routines

DESCRIPTION

       Date::Manip is a series of modules designed to make any common date/time operation easy to
       do.  Operations such as comparing two times, determining a date a given amount of time
       from another, or parsing international times are all easily done.  It deals with time as
       it is used in the Gregorian calendar (the one currently in use) with full support for time
       changes due to daylight saving time.

       From the very beginning, the main focus of Date::Manip has been to be able to do ANY
       desired date/time operation easily.  Many other modules exist which may do a subset of
       these operations quicker or more efficiently, but no other module can do all of the
       operations available in Date::Manip.

       Date::Manip has functionality to work with several fundamental types of data.

       dates
           The word date is used extensively here and is somewhat misleading. In Date::Manip, a
           date consists of three pieces of information: a calendar date (year, month, day), a
           time of day (hour, minute, second), and time zone information. Calendar dates and
           times are fully handled. Time zones are handled as well, but depending on how you use
           Date::Manip, there may be some limitations as discussed below.

       delta
           A delta is an amount of time (i.e. the amount of time between two different dates).
           Think of it as the duration of an event or the amount of time between two dates.

           A delta refers only to an amount of time. It includes no information about a starting
           or ending date/time.  Most people will think of a delta as an amount of time, but the
           term 'time' is already used so much in this module that I didn't want to use it here
           in order to avoid confusion.

       recurrence
           A recurring event is something which occurs on a regular recurring basis.

       holidays and events
           Holidays and events are basically named dates or recurrences.

       Among other things, Date::Manip allow you to:

       *   Enter a date in practically any format you choose.

       *   Compare two dates, entered in widely different formats to determine which is earlier.

       *   Extract any information you want from a date using a format string similar to the Unix
           date command.

       *   Determine the amount of time between two dates, or add an amount of time (a delta) to
           a date to get a second date.

       *   Work with dates using international formats (foreign month names, 12/10/95 referring
           to October rather than December, etc.).

       *   Convert dates from one timezone to another.

       *   To find a list of dates where a recurring event happens.

       Each of these tasks is trivial (one or two lines at most) with this package.

HOW TO USE DATE::MANIP

       There are three different ways to use Date::Manip .  There are three interfaces (version 5
       functional interface, version 6 functional, and version 6 object-oriented).  A complete
       description of each is included in the Date::Manip::Interfaces document.  The recommended
       (and the only one with access to the full functionality of the module) is using the
       Object-Oriented interface.

SEE ALSO

       Because Date::Manip performs so many operations, the documentation is extensive.  It
       includes the following documents:

   Information about the different interfaces
       Read this for a detailed description of each of the interfaces, including information on
       how to choose and use the interface best suited to your situation.

       Date::Manip::Interfaces
           A complete description of the functional interfaces available.  NOTE: it is
           recommended that you use the OO interface wherever possible as the functional
           interfaces have some limitations.

   A description of the functional interfaces:
       Date::Manip::DM5
           The version 5 functional interface

       Date::Manip::DM6
           The version 6 functional interface

   Objects and configuration
       An introduction to the Date::Manip classes used by the object-oriented interface and how
       to configure them:

       Date::Manip::Objects
           An overview of the various Date::Manip modules, and how to use them.

       Date::Manip::Config
           Information for configuring Date::Manip

   Date::Manip object-oriented modules
       These are the modules for using the object-oriented interface.

       Date::Manip::Obj
           This is the base class.  All other classes listed here inherit the methods defined in
           this class.

       Date::Manip::Base
           A module for doing low-level date operations.

       Date::Manip::TZ
           A module for working with time zones.

       Date::Manip::Date
           The module for working with dates.

       Date::Manip::Delta
           The module for working with deltas (amount of time).

       Date::Manip::Recur
           The module for working with recurrences (recurring dates).

   Timezone information
       Date::Manip::DM5abbrevs
           Time zone abbreviations used in the version 5 interface.

       Date::Manip::Zones
           Time zone data included in Date::Manip used in the version 6 interfaces.

   Miscellaneous information:
       Date::Manip::Calc
           Detailed information on how date calculations are done.

       Date::Manip::Holidays
           Information on defining and using holidays and events.

       Date::Manip::ConfigFile
           A sample config file.

       Date::Manip::Lang
           Information about the languages supported by Date::Manip and how to add a new
           language.

       Date::Manip::Lang::english
       Date::Manip::Lang::catalan
       Date::Manip::Lang::danish
       Date::Manip::Lang::dutch
       Date::Manip::Lang::finnish
       Date::Manip::Lang::french
       Date::Manip::Lang::german
       Date::Manip::Lang::italian
       Date::Manip::Lang::norwegian
       Date::Manip::Lang::polish
       Date::Manip::Lang::portugue
       Date::Manip::Lang::romanian
       Date::Manip::Lang::russian
       Date::Manip::Lang::spanish
       Date::Manip::Lang::swedish
       Date::Manip::Lang::turkish
           A description of the parseable words in each language currently supported by
           Date::Manip.

   Information about the module and administrative things:
       Date::Manip::Migration5to6
           Information on changes necessary to scripts when upgrading from 5.xx to 6.xx.

       Date::Manip::Changes5
           Change log for Date::Manip 5.xx

       Date::Manip::Changes5to6
           Differences between version 5.xx and 6.00 (including information on upgrading); this
           contains more details than the Migration5to6 document.

       Date::Manip::Changes6
           Change log for Date::Manip 6.xx

       Date::Manip::Misc
           Miscellaneous information about Date::Manip (who should use it; acknowledgments).

           Since many other date/time modules exist, some of which may do the specific
           operation(s) you need faster, be sure to read "SHOULD I USE DATE::MANIP" in
           Date::Manip::Misc before deciding which of the Date and Time modules from CPAN is for
           you.  However, if you want one module to do it all, Date::Manip is the one to use.

       Date::Manip::History
           Musings on the history of Date::Manip written around it's 20th birthday.

       Date::Manip::Problems
           Common problems and instructions for reporting bugs.

       Date::Manip::Examples
           Examples of how to use Date::Manip.

LICENSE

       This script is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
       terms as Perl itself.

AUTHOR

       Sullivan Beck (sbeck@cpan.org)