#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;
use Date::Manip qw(ParseDate);

my @years = (2004..2008);

sub find_year {
	my ($date) = @_;
	for my $year (@years) {
		my $date = ParseDate("$date $year");
		return $year if $date;
	}
	return undef;
}

my @dates = ("Thu Sep 18", "Wed Sep 7");

for (@dates) {
	my $year = find_year($_);
	print "$_ => " . (defined($year) ? $year : "not found" ) . "\n";
}