sub foo {

   my ($self,$input) = @_;
   my @ymd = split("-",$input);

   my $date = {
   day => $ymd[2],
   month => $ymd[1],
   year => $ymd[0],
   };

   my $dt = eval{DateTime->new($date)};
   return unless $dt;

   $date->{dt} = $dt;

   print "date: ".dump($date)."\n";
   return $date;

}

##</code><code>##

my $result = $date_thingy->foo("2000-01-01");