use strict; use Date::Tie; tie my %dt, 'Date::Tie'; my @a; for (1..7) { push @a, join('-', ( $dt{day} < 10 ? "(?:0)?".(0+$dt{day}) : $dt{day} ), ( $dt{month} < 10 ? "(?:0)?".(0+$dt{month}) : $dt{month} ), "(?:".substr($dt{year}, 0, 2).")?".substr($dt{year}, 2, 2) , ); $dt{day}--; } my $re = join('|', @a); print "RE: $re\n"; for ( qw( 25-08-2003 25-8-03 20-08-03 27-08-2003 15-8-03 ) ) { print "$_ is "; print "not " unless /$re/; print "in last 6 days\n"; } # 25-08-2003 is in last 6 days # 25-8-03 is in last 6 days # 20-08-03 is in last 6 days # 27-08-2003 is not in last 6 days # 15-8-03 is not in last 6 days