Provided by: libdate-manip-perl_6.42-1_all 
NAME
Date::Manip::Recur - methods for working with recurring events
SYNOPSIS
use Date::Manip::Recur;
$date = new Date::Manip::Recur;
DESCRIPTION
This module contains functions useful in parsing and manipulating recurrences. A
recurrence is a notation for specifying when a recurring event occurs. For example, if an
event occurs every other Friday or every 4 hours, this can be defined as a recurrence. A
fully specified recurrence consists of the following pieces of information:
Frequency
The most basic piece of information is the frequency. For relatively simple recurring
events, the frequency defines when those events occur. For more complicated recurring
events, the frequency tells approximately when the events occur (but to get the actual
events, the modifiers must be applied as described below).
Examples include:
the first of every month
every other day
the 4th Thursday of each month at 2:00 PM
every 2 hours and 30 minutes
All of these can be expressed as a frequency.
NOTE: unlike date parsing, support for frequencies written out in English (or whatever
language you are working in) is extremely limited. For example, the string "the first
of every month" will NOT be parsed as a valid frequency. A limited number of
frequencies can be expressed in a written out form (see OTHER FREQUENCY FORMATS
below), but most must be expressed in the format described below in FREQUENCY
NOTATION. In this document however, the written out form will often be used for the
sake of clarity.
Since a frequency typically refers to events could happen an infinite number of times,
you must specify either a date range or a base date (or both) in order to determine
actual dates on which an event occurred.
Modifier
Complex recurring events may require the use of modifiers in order to get them
correct.
For example, in America, many places treat both Thanksgiving and the day after as
holidays. Thanksgiving is easy to define as the frequency:
4th Thursday of every November
but the day after is NOT possible to define only as a frequency. Depending on the
year, the day after the 4th Thursday may be the 4th or 5th Friday.
The day after Thanksgiving must be defined as a frequency and a modifier:
4th Thursday of every November
+1 day
The syntax for the various modifiers is described below in the MODIFIERS section.
Base date
All recurrences have a base date which is a date on which a recurring event is based.
The base date is not necessarily a date where the recurring event occurs. Instead, it
may be modified (with modifiers, or with values specified in the recurrence) to
actually produce a recurring event.
For example, if the frequency is
every other Friday at noon
the base date will be a Friday and the recurring event will happen on that Friday,
Friday two weeks later, Friday four weeks later, etc. In all cases, the dates will be
modified to be at noon.
If the frequency has a modifier, such as:
every other Friday
+ 1 day
(and yes, this trivial example could be expressed as the frequency 'every other
Saturday' with no modifiers), then the base date is still on a Friday, but the actual
recurring event is determined by applying modifiers and occurs on Saturday.
Recurring events are assigned a number with the event that is referred to by the base
date being the 0th occurrence, the first one after that as the 1st occurrence, etc.
Recurring events can also occur before the base date with the last time the recurring
event occurred before the base date is the -1th occurence.
So, if the frequency is
the first of every month
and the base date is 'Mar 1, 2000', then the 5 recurring events around it are:
N Date
-2 Jan 1 2000
-1 Feb 1 2000
0 Mar 1 2000
+1 Apr 1 2000
+2 May 1 2000
In some cases, the Nth date may not be defined. For example, if the frequency is:
the 31st of every month
and the base date is Mar 31, 2000, the 5 recurring events around it are:
N Date
-2 Jan 31 2000
-1 undefined
0 Mar 31 2000
1 undefined
2 May 31 2000
As mentioned above, the base date is used to determine one of the occurrences of the
recurring event... but it may not actually be on of those events.
As an example, for the recurring event:
every other Friday
a base date could be on a Friday, but it would also be possible to have a base date on
some other day of the week, and it could unambiguously refer simply to a week, and the
recurring event would occur on Friday of that week.
In most cases, it won't be necessary to treat base dates with that level of
complexity, but with complicated recurring events, it may be necessary. More
information on how Date::Manip determines a recurring event from a base date is given
below in the section BASE DATES.
Range
A date range is simply a starting and an ending date. When a range is used (primarily
in the dates method as described below), only recurring events (with all modifiers
applied) which happened on or after the start date and on or before the end date are
used.
For example, if the frequency was
the first of every month
and the start/end dates were Jan 1 2000 and May 31 2000, the list of dates referred to
would be:
Jan 1 2000
Feb 1 2000
Mar 1 2000
Apr 1 2000
May 1 2000
If no base date is specified, but a date range is specified, the start date is used as
the specified base date.
It should be noted that if both the range and base date are specified, the range is
not used to determine a base date. Also, the first time the recurring event occurs in
this range may NOT be the 0th occurrence with respect to the base date, and that is
allowed.
NOTE: both dates in the range and the base date must all be in the same time zone, and
use the same Date::Manip::Base object.
FREQUENCY NOTATION
The syntax for specifying a frequency requires some explanation. It is very concise, but
contains the flexibility to express every single type of recurring event I could think of.
The syntax of the frequency description is a colon separated list of the format
Y:M:W:D:H:MN:S (which stand for year, month, week, etc.). One (and only one) of the
colons may optionally be replaced by an asterisk, or an asterisk may be prepended to the
string. For example, the following are all valid frequency descriptions:
1:2:3:4:5:6:7
1:2*3:4:5:6:7
*1:2:3:4:5:6:7
But the following are NOT valid because they contain more than one asterisk:
1:2*3:4:5*6:7
*1:2:3:4:5:6*7
When an asterisk is included, the portion to the left of it is called the interval, and
refers to an approximate time interval between recurring events. For example, if the
interval of the frequency is:
1:2*
it means that the recurring event occurs approximately every 1 year and 2 months. The
interval is approximate because elements to the right of the asterisk, as well as any
modifiers included in the recurrence, will affect when the events actually occur.
If no asterisks are included, then the entire recurrence is an interval. For example,
0:0:0:1:12:0:0
refers to an event that occurs every 1 day, 12 hours.
The portion of the frequency that occur after an asterisk is called the recurrence time
(or rtime), and refers to a specific value (or values) for that type of time element (i.e.
exactly as it would appear on a calendar or a clock). For example, if the frequency ends
with the rtime:
*12:0:0
then the recurring event occurs at 12:00:00 (noon).
For example:
0:0:0:2*12:30:0 every 2 days at 12:30 (each day)
Elements in the rtime can be listed as single values, ranges (2 numbers separated by a
dash "-"), or a comma separated list of values or ranges. In some cases, negative values
are appropriate for the week or day values. -1 stands for the last possible value, -2 for
the second to the last, etc.
If multiple values are included in more than one field in the rtime, every possible
combination will be used. For example, if the frequency ends with the rtime:
*12-13:0,30:0
the event will occur at 12:00, 12:30, 13:00, and 13:30.
Some examples are:
0:0:0:1*2,4,6:0:0 every day at at 02:00, 04:00, and 06:00
0:0:0:2*12-13:0,30:0 every other day at 12:00, 12:30, 13:00,
and 13:30
0:1:0*-1:0:0:0 the last day of every month
*1990-1995:12:0:1:0:0:0
Dec 1 in 1990 through 1995
There is no way to express the following with a single recurrence:
every day at 12:30 and 1:00
You have to use two recurrences to do this.
You can include negative numbers in ranges. For example, including the range -2---1 means
to go from the 2nd to the last to the last occurrence. Negative values are only supported
in the week and day fields, and only in some cases.
You can even use a range like 2--2 (which means to go from the 2nd to the 2nd to the last
occurrence). However, this is STRONGLY discouraged since this leads to a date which
produces a variable number of events. As a result, the only way to determine the Nth date
is to calculate every date starting at the base date. If you know that every date produces
exactly 4 recurring events, you can calculate the Nth date without needing to determine
every intermediate date.
When specifying a range, the first value must be less than the second or else nothing will
be returned.
When both the week and day elements are non-zero and the day is right of the asterisk, the
day refers to the day of week. The following examples illustrate these type of
frequencies:
0:1*4:2:0:0:0 4th Tuesday (day 2) of every month
0:1*-1:2:0:0:0 last Tuesday of every month
0:0:3*2:0:0:0 every 3rd Tuesday (every 3 weeks
on 2nd day of week)
1:0*12:2:0:0:0 the 12th Tuesday of each year
NOTE: The day of week refers to the numeric value of each day as specified by ISO 8601. In
other words, day 1 is ALWAY Monday, day 7 is ALWAYS Sunday, etc., regardless of what day
of the week the week is defined to begin on (using the FirstDay config variable). So when
the day field refers to the day of week, it's value (or values if a range or comma
separated list are used) must be 1-7.
When the week element is zero and the month element is non-zero and the day element is
right of the asterisk, the day value is the day of the month (it can be from 1 to 31 or -1
to -31 counting from the end of the month).
3*1:0:2:12:0:0 every 3 years on Jan 2 at noon
0:1*0:2:12,14:0:0 2nd of every month at 12:00 and 14:00
0:1:0*-2:0:0:0 2nd to last day of every month
NOTE: If the day given refers to the 29th, 30th, or 31st, in a month that does not have
that number of days, it is ignored. For example, if you ask for the 31st of every month,
it will return dates in Jan, Mar, May, Jul, etc. Months with fewer than 31 days will be
ignored.
If both the month and week elements are zero, and the year element is non-zero, the day
value is the day of the year (1 to 365 or 366 -- or the negative numbers to count
backwards from the end of the year).
1:0:0*45:0:0:0 45th day of every year
Specifying a day that doesn't occur in that year silently ignores that year. The only
result of this is that specifying +366 or -366 will ignore all years except leap years.
If the week element is non-zero and to the right of the asterisk, and the day element is
zero, the frequency refers to the first day of the given week of the month or week of the
year:
0:1*2:0:0:0:0 the first day of the 2nd week of
every month
1:0*2:0:0:0:0 the first day of the 2nd week of
every year
Although the meaning of almost every recurrence can be deduced by the above rules, a set
of tables describing every possible combination of Y/M/W/D meanings, and giving an example
of each is included below in the section LIST OF Y/M/W/D FREQUENCY DEFINITIONS. It also
explains a small number of special cases.
NOTE: If all fields left of the asterisk are zero, the last one is implied to be 1. In
other words, the following are equivalent:
0:0:0*x:x:x:x
0:0:1*x:x:x:x
and can be thought of as every possible occurence of the rtime.
NOTE: When applying a frequency to get a list of dates on which a recurring event occurs,
a delta is created from the frequency which is applied to get dates referred to by the
interval. These are then operated on by the rtime and by modifiers to actually get the
recurring events. The deltas will always be exact or approximate. There is no support
for business mode recurrences. However, with the careful use of modifiers (discussed
below), most recurring business events can be determined too.
BASE DATES
A recurrence of the form *Y:M:W:D:H:MN:S (which is technically speaking not a recurring
event... it is just a date or dates specified using the recurrence syntax) uses the first
date which matches the frequency as the base date. Any base date specified will be
completely ignored. A date range may be specified to work with a subset of the dates.
All other recurrences use a specified base date in order to determine when the 0th
occurrence of a recurring event happens. As mentioned above, the specified base date may
be determined from the start date, or specified explicitly.
The specified base date is used to provide the bare minimum information. For example, the
recurrence:
0:0:3*4:0:0:0 every 3 weeks on Thursday
requires a base date to determine the week, but nothing else. Using the standard
definition (Monday-Sunday) for a week, and given that one week in August 2009 is Aug 10 to
Aug 16, any date in the range Aug 10 to Aug 16 will give the same results. The definition
of the week defaults to Monday-Sunday, but may be modified using the FirstDay config
variable.
Likewise, the recurrence:
1:3*0:4:0:0:0 every 1 year, 3 months on the 4th
day of the month
would only use the year and month of the base date, so all dates in a given month would
give the same set of recurring dates.
It should also be noted that a date may actually produce multiple recurring events. For
example, the recurrence:
0:0:2*4:12,14:0:0 every 2 weeks on Thursday at 12:00
and 14:00
produces 2 events for every date. So in this case, the base date produces the 0th and 1st
event, the base date + an offset produces the 2nd and 3rd events, etc.
It must be noted that the base date refers ONLY to the interval part of the recurrence.
The rtime and modifiers are NOT used in determining the base date.
INTERVAL
The interval of a frequency (everything left of the asterisk) will be used to generate a
list of dates (called interval dates). When rtime values and modifiers are applied to an
interval date, it produces the actual recurring events.
As already noted, if the rtime values include multiple values for any field, more than one
event are produced by a single interval date.
It is important to understand is how the interval dates are calculated. The interval is
trivially turned into a delta. For example, with the frequency 0:0:2*4:12:0:0, the
interval is 0:0:2 which produces the delta 0:0:2:0:0:0:0.
In order to get the Nth interval date, the delta is multiplied by N and added to the base
date. In other words:
D(0) = Jan 31
D(1) = Jan 31 + 1 month = Feb 28
D(2) = Jan 31 + 2 month = Mar 31
DATE RANGE
The start and end dates form the range in which recurring events can fall into.
Every recurring date will fall in the limit:
start <= date <= end
When a recurrence is created, it may include a default range, and this is handled by the
RecurRange config variable.
OTHER FREQUENCY FORMATS
There are a small handful of English strings (or the equivalent in other languages) which
can be parsed in place of a numerical frequency. These include:
every Tuesday in June [1997]
2nd Tuesday in June [1997]
last Tuesday in June [1997]
every Tuesday of every month [in 1997]
2nd Tuesday of every month [in 1997]
last Tuesday of every month [in 1997]
every day of every month [in 1997]
2nd day of every month [in 1997]
last day of every month [in 1997]
every day [in 1997]
every 2nd day [in 1977]
every 2 days [in 1977]
Each of these set the frequency. If the year is include in the string, it also sets the
dates in the range to be the first and last day of the year.
In each of these, the numerical part (i.e. 2nd in all of the examples above) can be any
number from 1 to 31. To make a frequency with a larger number than that, you have to use
the standard format discussed above.
Due to the complexity of writing out (and parsing) frequencies written out, I do not
intend to add additional frequency formats, and the use of these is discouraged. The
frequency format described above is preferred.
MODIFIERS
Any number of modifiers may be added to a frequency to get the actual date of a recurring
event. Modifiers are case sensitive.
Modifiers to set the day-of-week
The following modifiers can be used to adjust a date to a specific day of the week.
PDn Means the previous day n not counting today
PTn Means the previous day n counting today
NDn Means the next day n not counting today
NTn Means the next day n counting today
WDn Day n (1-7) of the current week
In each of these, 'n' is 1-7 (1 being Sunday, 7 being Saturday).
For example, PD2/ND2 returns the previous/next Tuesday. If the date that this is
applied to is Tuesday, it modifies it to one week in the past/future.
PT2/NT2 are similar, but will leave the date unmodified if it is a Tuesday.
Modifiers to move forward/backward a number of days
These modifiers can be used to add/subtract n days to a date.
FDn Means step forward n days.
BDn Means step backward n days.
Modifiers to force events to be on business days
Modifiers can also be used to force recurring events to occur on business days. These
modifiers include:
FWn Means step forward n workdays.
BWn Means step backward n workdays.
CWD The closest work day (using the TomorrowFirst
config variable).
CWN The closest work day (looking forward first).
CWP The closest work day (looking backward first).
NWD The next work day counting today
PWD The previous work day counting today
DWD The closest work day (using the TomorrowFirst config
variable) counting today
IBD This discards the date if it is not a business day.
NBD This discards the date if it IS a business day.
The CWD, CWN, and CWP modifiers will always change the date to the closest working day
NOT counting the current date.
The NWD, PWD, and DWD modifiers always change the date to the closest working day
unless the current date is a work day. In that case, it is left unmodified.
CWD, CWN, and CWP will usually return the same value, but if you are starting at the
middle day of a 3-day weekend (for example), it will return either the first work day
of the following week, or the last work day of the previous week depending on whether
it looks forward or backward first.
All business day modifiers ignore the time, so if a date is initially calculated at
Saturday at noon, and the FW1 is applied, the date is initially moved to the following
Monday (assuming it is a work day) and the FW1 moves it to Tuesday. The final result
will be Tuesday at noon.
The IBD and NBD modifiers eliminate dates from the list immediately. In other words,
if a recurrence has three modifiers:
FD1,IBD,FD1
then as a date is being tested, first the FD1 modifier is applied. Then, it is tested
to see if it is a business day. If it is, the second FD1 modifier will be applied.
Otherwise, the date will not be included in the list of recurring events.
Special modifiers
The following modifiers do things that cannot be expressed using any other combination
of frequency and modifiers:
EASTER Set the date to Easter for this year.
DETERMINING DATES
In order to get a list of dates referred to by the recurrence, the following steps are
taken.
The recurrence is tested for errors
The recurrence must be completely specified with a base date (either supplied
explicitly, or derived from a start date) and date range when necessary. All dates
must be valid.
The actual base date is determined
Using information from the interval and the specified base date, the actual base date
is determined.
The Nth date is calculated
By applying the delta that corresponds to the interval, and then applying rtime and
modifier information, the Nth date is determined.
This is repeated until all desired dates have been obtained.
The nth method described below has more details.
The range is tested
Any date that fall outside the range is discarded.
NOTE: when the recurrence contains no interval, it is not necessary to specify the
range, and if it is not specified, all of the dates are used. The range MAY be
specified to return only a subset of the dates if desired.
LIST OF Y/M/W/D FREQUENCY DEFINITIONS
Because the week and day values may have multiple meanings depending on where the asterisk
is, and which of the fields have non-zero values, a list of every possible combination is
included here (though most can be determined using the rules above).
When the asterisk occurs before the day element, and the day element is non-zero, the day
element can take on multiple meanings depending on where the asterisk occurs, and which
leading elements (year, month, week) have non-zero values. It can refer to the day of the
week, day of the month, or day of the year.
When the asterisk occurs before the week element, the week element of the frequency can
also take on multiple meanings as well. When the month field and day fields are zero, it
refers to the week of the year. Since the week of the year is well defined in the ISO 8601
spec, there is no ambiguity.
When the month field is zero, but the day field is not, the week field refers to the nth
occurrence of the day of week referred to by the day field in the year.
When the month field is non-zero, the week field refers to the nth occurrence of the day
of week in the month.
In the tables below only the first 4 elements of the frequency are shown. The actual
frequency will include the hour, minute, and second elements in addition to the ones
shown.
When all elements left of the asterisk are 0, the interval is such that it occurs the
maximum times possible (without changing the type of elements to the right of the
asterisk). Another way of looking at it is that the last 0 element of the interval is
changed to 1. So, the interval:
0:0*3:0
is equivalent to
0:1*3:0
When the year field is zero, and is right of the asterisk, it means the current year.
All elements left of the asterisk
When all of the month, week, and day elements are left of the asterisk, the simple
definitions of the frequency are used:
frequency meaning
1:2:3:4 every 1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks,
4 days
Any, or all of the fields can be zero.
Non-zero day, non-zero week
When both the day and week elements are non-zero, the day element always refers to the
day of week. Values must be in the range (1 to 7) and no negative values are allowed.
The following tables shows all possible variations of the frequency where this can
happen (where day 4 = Thursday).
When the week is left of the asterisk, the interval is used to get the weeks on the
calendar containing a recurring date, and the day is used to set the day of the week.
The following are possible:
frequency meaning
1:2:3*4 every 1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks
on Thur
1:0:3*4 every 1 year, 3 weeks on Thur
0:2:3*4 every 2 months, 3 weeks on Thur
0:0:3*4 every 3 weeks on Thur
When the week is right of the asterisk, and a non-zero month is left of the asterisk,
the recurrence refers to a specific occurrence of a day-of-week during a month. The
following are possible:
frequency meaning
1:2*3:4 every 1 year, 2 months on the
3rd Thursday of the month
0:2*3:4 every 2 months on the 3rd Thur
of the month
When the week and month are both non-zero and right of the asterisk, the recurrence
refers to an occurrence of day-of-week during the given month. Possibilities are:
frequency meaning
1*2:3:4 every 1 year in February on
the 3rd Thur
0*2:3:4 same as 1*2:3:4
*1:2:3:4 in Feb 0001 on the 3rd Thur
of the month
*0:2:3:4 on the 3rd Thur of Feb in the
current year
When the week is right of the asterisk, and the month is zero, the recurrence refers
to an occurence of the day-of-week during the year. The following are possible:
frequency meaning
1:0*3:4 every 1 year on the 3rd Thursday
1*0:3:4 of the year
*1:0:3:4 in 0001 on the 3rd Thur of
the year
0*0:3:4 same as 1*0:3:4
*0:0:3:4 on the 3rd Thur of the current
year
There is one special case:
frequency meaning
0:0*3:4 same as 0:1*3:4 (every month on
the 3rd Thur of the month)
Non-zero day, non-zero month
When a non-zero day element occurs to the right of the asterisk and the week element
is zero, but the month element is non-zero, the day elements always refers to a the
day of month in the range (1 to 31) or (-1 to -31).
The following table shows all possible variations of the frequency where this can
happen:
frequency meaning
1:2:0*4 every 1 year, 2 months on the
1:2*0:4 4th day of the month
1*2:0:4 every year on Feb 4th
*1:2:0:4 Feb 4th, 0001
0:2:0*4 every 2 months on the 4th day
0:2*0:4 of the month
0*2:0:4 same as 1*2:0:4
*0:2:0:4 Feb 4th of the current year
Zero day, non-zero week
When a day is zero, and the week is non-zero, the recurrence refers to a specific
occurrence of the first day of the week (as given by the FirstDay variable).
The frequency can refer to an occurrence of FirstDay in a specific week (if the week
is left of the asterisk):
frequency meaning
1:2:3*0 every 1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks on
FirstDay
1:0:3*0 every 1 year, 3 weeks on FirstDay
0:2:3*0 every 2 months, 3 weeks on FirstDay
0:0:3*0 every 3 weeks on FirstDay
or to a week in the year (if the week is right of the asterisk, and the month is
zero):
frequency meaning
1:0*3:0 every 1 year on the first day of the
1*0:3:0 3rd week of the year
*1:0:3:0 the first day of the 3rd week of 0001
or to an occurrence of FirstDay in a month (if the week is right of the asterisk and
month is non-zero):
frequency meaning
1:2*3:0 every 1 year, 2 months on the 3rd
occurence of FirstDay
0:2*3:0 every 2 months on the 3rd occurence
of FirstDay
1*2:3:0 every year on the 3rd occurence
of FirstDay in Feb
0*2:3:0 same as 1*2:3:0
*1:2:3:0 the 3rd occurence of FirstDay
Feb 0001
*0:2:3:0 the 3rd occurence of FirstDay
in Feb of the current year
NOTE: in the last group, a slightly more intuitive definition of these would have been
to say that the week field refers to the week of the month, but given the ISO 8601
manner of defining when weeks start, this definition would have virtually no practical
application. So the definition of the week field referring to the Nth occurence of
FirstDay in a month was used instead.
There are a few special cases here:
frequency meaning
0:0*3:0 same as 0:1*3:0 (every month on the 3rd
occurence of the first day of week)
0*0:3:0 same as 1*0:3:0
*0:0:3:0 the first day of the 3rd week of the
current year
Non-zero day
When a non-zero day element occurs and both the month and week elements are zero, the
day elements always refers to a the day of year (1 to 366 or -1 to -366 to count from
the end).
The following table shows all possible variations of the frequency where this can
happen:
frequency meaning
1:0:0*4 every year on the 4th day of
1:0*0:4 the year
1*0:0:4
*1:0:0:4 the 4th day of 0001
Other non-zero day variations have multiple meanings for the day element:
frequency meaning
0:0:0*4 same as 0:0:1*4 (every week on Thur)
0:0*0:4 same as 0:1*0:4 (every month on the 4th)
0*0:0:4 same as 1*0:0:4
*0:0:0:4 the 4th day of the current year
All other variations
The remaining variations have zero values for both week and day. They are:
frequency meaning
1:2:0*0 every 1 year, 2 months on the first
1:2*0:0 day of the month
1*2:0:0 every year on Feb 1
*1:2:0:0 Feb 1, 0001
1:0:0*0 every 1 year on Jan 1
1:0*0:0
1*0:0:0
*1:0:0:0 Jan 1, 0001
0:2:0*0 every 2 months on the first day of
0:2*0:0 the month
0*2:0:0 same as 1*2:0:0
*0:2:0:0 Feb 1 of the current year
0:0:0*0 same as 0:0:1*0 (every week on
the first day of the week)
0:0*0:0 same as 0:1*0:0 (every month
on the 1st)
0*0:0:0 same as 1*0:0:0
*0:0:0:0 Jan 1 of the current year
METHODS
new
new_config
new_date
new_delta
new_recur
base
tz
is_date
is_delta
is_recur
config
err Please refer to the Date::Manip::Obj documentation for these methods.
parse
$err = $recur->parse($string [,$modifiers] [,$base,$start,$end]);
This creates a new recurrence. A string containing a valid frequency is required. In
addition, $start, $end, and $base dates can be passed in (either as Date::Manip::Date
objects, or as strings containing dates that can be parsed), and any number of the
modifiers listed above.
If the $start or $end dates are not included, they may be supplied automatically,
based on the value of the RecurRange variable. If any of the dates are passed in, they
must be included in the order given (though it is safe to pass an empty string or
undef in for any of them if you only want to set some, but not all of them).
The $modifiers argument must either contain valid modifiers, or be left out of the
argument list entirely. You cannot pass an empty string or undef in for it.
$err = $recur->parse($string);
This creates a recurrence from a string which contains all of the necessary elements
of the recurrence. The string is of the format:
FREQ*MODIFIERS*BASE*START*END
where FREQ is a string containing a frequency, MODIFIERS is a string containing a
comma separated list of modifiers, BASE, START, and END are strings containing
parseable dates.
All pieces are optional, but order must be maintained, so all of the following are
valid:
FREQ*MODIFIERS
FREQ**BASE
FREQ**BASE*START*END
If a part of the recurrence is passed in both as part of $string and as an argument,
the argument overrides the string portion, with the possible exception of modifiers.
The modifiers in the argument override the string version unless the first one is a
'+' in which case they are appended. See the modifiers method below for more
information.
frequency
start
end
basedate
modifiers
You can also create a recurrency in steps (or replace parts of an existing recurrence)
using the following:
$err = $recur->frequency($frequency);
$err = $recur->start($start);
$err = $recur->end($end);
$err = $recur->basedate($base);
$err = $recur->modifiers($modifiers);
$err = $recur->modifiers(@modifiers);
These set the appropriate part of the recurrence.
Calling the frequency method discards all information currently stored in the Recur
object (including an existing start, end, and base date), so this method should be
called first.
In the modifiers method, the modifiers can be passed in as a string containing a comma
separated list of modifiers, or as a list of modifiers. The modifiers passed in
override all previously set modifiers UNLESS the first one is the string "+", in which
case the new modifiers are appended to the list.
In the start, end, and base methods, the date passed in can be a Date::Manip::Date
object, or a string that can be parsed to get a date.
NOTE: the parse method will overwrite all parts of the recurrence, so it is not
appropriate to do:
$recur->modifiers($modifiers);
$recur->parse($string);
The modifiers passed in in the first call will be overwritten.
These functions can also be used to look up the values.
$freq = $recur->frequency();
$start = $recur->start();
$end = $recur->end();
@mods = $recur->modifiers();
($base,$actual) = $recur->basedate();
The basedate function will return both the specified base and the actual base dates.
If any of the values are not yet determined, nothing will be returned.
dates
@dates = $recur->dates([$start,$end]);
Returns the list of dates defined by the full recurrence. If there is an error, or if
there are no dates, an empty list will be returned.
$start and $end are either undef, or dates which can be used to limit the set of dates
passed back (they can be Date::Manip::Date objects or strings that can be parsed).
If the recurrence does not have a start and end date already, passing in $start and
$end will set the range (but they will NOT be stored in the recurrence).
If the recurrence does have a start and end date stored in it, the $start and $end
arguments can be used to temporarily override the limits. For example, if a recurrence
has a start date of Jan 1, 2006 00:00:00 and and end date of Dec 31, 2006 23:59:59
stored in the recurrence, passing in $start of Jul 1, 2006 00:00:00 will limit the
dates returned to the range of Jul 1 to Dec 31.
Passing in a start date of Jul 1, 2007 will mean that no dates are returned since the
recurrence limits the date to be in 2006.
If one or both of $start and $end are undef, then the stored values will be used.
nth
($date,$err) = $recur->nth($n);
This returns the $n'th recurring event ($n may be any integer). If an error occurs, it
is returned (but it is not set in $recur since it may be properly, though perhaps
incompletely, defined). The following errors may be returned:
Invalid recurrence
The recurrence has an error flag set.
Incomplete recurrence
The recurrence is incomplete. It needs either a
base date or a date range.
Range invalid
The recurrence has an invalid date range (i.e.
the end date occurs before the start date).
Start invalid
End invalid
Base invalid
An invalid date was entered for one of the dates.
There are a few special circumstances to be aware of.
1) If the recurrence contains no interval (i.e. is of the form *Y:M:W:D:H:MN:S), the
dates come directly from the rtime values. In this case, the 0th event is the first
date in the list of dates specified by the rtime. As such, $n must be a positive
integer. If $n is negative, or outside the range of dates specified, the returned
date will be undef (but this is not an error).
2) A very small number of recurrences have an unknown number of recurring events
associated with each date. This only happens if one of the values in the rtime is
specified as a range including both a positive and negative index. For example, if
the day field in an rtime refers to the day of month, and is 15--15 (i.e. the 15th day
to the 15th to the last day), this may include 3 events (on a month with 31 days), 2
event (months with 30 days), 1 event (months with 29 days), or 0 events (months with
28 days). As such, in order to calculate the Nth date, you have to start with the 0th
(i.e. base) date and calculate every event until you get the Nth one. For this reason,
it is highly recommended that this type of frequency be avoided as it will be quite
slow.
3) Most recurrences have a known number of events (equal to the number of combinations
of values in the rtime) for each date. For these, calculating the Nth date is much
faster. However, in this case, some of them may refer to an invalid date. For example,
if the frequency is 'the 31st of every month' and the base (0th) date is Jan 31, the
1st event would refer to Feb 31. Since that isn't valid, undef would be returned for
$n=1. Obviously, it would be possible to actually determine the Nth valid event by
calculating all N-1 dates, but in the interest of performance, this is not done.
4) The way the Nth recurring event is calculated differs slightly for NE>0 and N<0 if
the delta referred to by the frequency is approximate. To calculate the Nth recurring
event (where N>0), you take the base date and add N*DELTA (where DELTA is the delta
determined by the frequency). To get the Nth recurring event (where N<0), a date is
determine which, if N*DELTA were added to it, would produce the base date. For more
details, refer to the Date::Manip::Calc document. In the SUBTRACTION section in the
discussion of approximate date-delta calculations, calculations are done with
$subtract = 2.
next
prev
($date,$err) = $recur->next();
($date,$err) = $recur->prev();
These return the next/previous recurring event.
The first time next/prev is called, one of the recurring events will be selected and
returned (using the rules discussed below). Subsequent calls to next/prev will return
the next or previous event.
Unlike the nth method which will return a specific event (or undef if the Nth even is
not defined), the next and prev methods will only work with defined events.
So, for the recurrence:
the 31st of every month
next might return the following sequence of events:
Jan 31 2000
Mar 31 2000
May 31 2000
The rules for determining what event to return the first time one of these is called
are as follows:
1) If there is a range, next will return the first event that occurs after the start
of the range. prev will return the last event that occurs before the end of the
range.
2) If there is no range, next will return the first event on or after the base date.
prev will return the last event before the base date.
The error codes are the same as for the nth method.
HISTORY OF THE FREQUENCY NOTATION
I realize that the frequency notation described above looks quite complicated at first
glance, but it is (IMO) the best notation for expressing recurring events in existence. I
actually consider it the single most important contribution to date/time handling in
Date::Manip.
When I first decided to add recurring events to Date::Manip, I first came up with a list
of common ways of specifying recurring events, and then went looking for a notation that
could be used to define them. I was hoping for a notation that would be similar to cron
notation, but more powerful.
After looking in several specifications (including ISO 8601) and after a discussion on a
mailing list of calendar related topics, it appeared that there was no concise, flexible
notation for handling recurring events that would handle all of the common forms I'd come
up with.
So, as a matter of necessity, I set about inventing my own notation. As I was looking at
my list, it struck me that all of the parts which specified a frequency were higher level
(i.e. referred to a larger unit of time) than those parts which specified a specific value
(what I've called the rtime). In other words, when the terms were laid out from year down
to seconds, the frequency part was always left of specific values.
That led immediately to the notation described above, so I started analyzing it to figure
out if it could express all of the recurring events I'd come up with. It succeeded on 100%
of them. Not only that, but by playing with different values (especially different
combinations of m/w/d values), I found that it would define recurring events that I hadn't
even thought of, but which seemed perfectly reasonable in hindsight.
After a very short period, I realized just how powerful this notation was, and set about
implementing it, and as I said above, of all the contributions that Date::Manip has made,
I consider this to be the most important.
KNOWN BUGS
If you specify a recurrence which cannot be satisfied for the base date, or for any time
after the base date, the recurrence will crash. This can only happen if you specify a
recurrence that always occurs in the spring DST transition using the current timezone
rules.
For example, in a US timezone, the current timezone rules state that a DST transition
occurs at 02:00:00 on the 2nd Sunday in March and the clock jumps to 03:00. This started
in 2006. As a result, the recurrence
1*3:2:7:2:0:0
with a base date of 2006 or later cannot be satisfied.
BUGS AND QUESTIONS
Please refer to the Date::Manip::Problems documentation for information on submitting bug
reports or questions to the author.
SEE ALSO
Date::Manip - main module documentation
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)