NAME

       Date::Extract - extract probable dates from strings

SYNOPSIS

           my $parser = Date::Extract->new();
           my $dt = $parser->extract($arbitrary_text)
               or die "No date found.";
           return $dt->ymd;

MOTIVATION

       There are already a few modules for getting a date out of a string.  DateTime::Format::Natural should be
       your first choice. There's also Time::ParseDate which fits many formats. Finally, you can coerce
       Date::Manip to do your bidding.

       But I needed something that will take an arbitrary block of text, search it for something that looks like
       a date string, and build a DateTime object out of it. This module fills this niche. By design it will
       produce few false positives. This means it will not catch nearly everything that looks like a date
       string. So if you have the string "do homework for class 2019" it won't return a DateTime object with the
       year set to 2019. This is what your users would probably expect.

METHODS

   new PARAMHASH => "Date::Extract"
       arguments

       time_zone
           Forces  a  particular  time  zone  to be set (this actually matters, as "tomorrow" on Monday at 11 PM
           means something different than "tomorrow" on Tuesday at 1 AM).

           By default it will use the "floating" time zone. See the documentation for DateTime.

           This controls both the input time zone and output time zone.

       prefers
           This argument decides what happens when an ambiguous date appears in the input. For example, "Friday"
           may refer to any number of Fridays. The valid options for this argument are:

           nearest
               Prefer the nearest date. This is the default.

           future
               Prefer the closest future date.

           past
               Prefer the closest past date. NOT YET SUPPORTED.

       returns
           If the text has multiple possible dates, then this argument determines which date will  be  returned.
           By default it's 'first'.

           first
               Returns the first date found in the string.

           last
               Returns the final date found in the string.

           earliest
               Returns the date found in the string that chronologically precedes any other date in the string.

           latest
               Returns the date found in the string that chronologically follows any other date in the string.

           all Returns all dates found in the string, in the order they were found in the string.

           all_cron
               Returns all dates found in the string, in chronological order.

   extract text, ARGS => "DateTime"s
       Takes  an  arbitrary amount of text and extracts one or more dates from it. The return value will be zero
       or more "DateTime" objects. If called in scalar context, only one will be returned, even if the "returns"
       argument specifies multiple possible return values.

       See the documentation of "new" for the configuration of this  method.  Any  arguments  passed  into  this
       method will trump those from the constructor.

       You may reuse a parser for multiple calls to "extract".

       You   do   not   need  to  have  an  instantiated  "Date::Extract"  object  to  call  this  method.  Just
       "Date::Extract->extract($foo)" will work.

FORMATS HANDLED

       •   today; tomorrow; yesterday

       •   last Friday; next Monday; previous Sat

       •   Monday; Mon

       •   November 13th, 1986; Nov 13, 1986

       •   November 13th; Nov 13

       •   13 Nov; 13th November

       •   1986/11/13; 1986-11-13

       •   11-13-86; 11/13/1986

CAVEATS

       This module is intentionally very simple. Surprises are not welcome here.

SEE ALSO

       DateTime::Format::Natural, Time::ParseDate, Date::Manip

AUTHOR

       Shawn M Moore, "<sartak at bestpractical dot com>"

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       Thanks to Steven Schubiger for writing the fine DateTime::Format::Natural.   We  still  use  it,  but  it
       doesn't quite fill all the particular needs we have.

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

       Copyright 2007-2009 Best Practical Solutions.

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

perl v5.18.2                                       2009-11-19                                 Date::Extract(3pm)