sub unpad_datestring {

  ## Strip the leading 0s from the day and month portions of 
  ## a YMD-style datestring.

  ## The only mandatory argument is the date string itself, 
  ## which assumes the string is delimeted by a slash and 
  ## ordered American-style ( MDY ).  If that assumption is 
  ## wrong, you can override either or both via the 'delim'
  ## and 'order' arguments ...

  ##   '07/04/2001'
  ##   '04/07/01', 'order' => [qw( d m y )]
  ##   '01.07.04', 'order' => [qw( y m d )], 'delim' => '.'

  my $date = shift or return;

  my %args = (
    'order' => [qw(d m y)],
    'delim' => '/',
     @_,
  );

  my @date = split /\Q$args{'delim'}/, $date;

  for ( my $x = 0; $x < @date; $x++ ) {
    $date[$x] = int $date[$x] 
      if lc $args{'order'}->[$x] =~ /^[dm]$/;
  }

  return join $args{'delim'}, @date;
}