Yes, $date[3] is the day, (the 4th element in the array), and I'm subtracting 1 from it. @date has (secs mins hour day month year) from localtime. I'm taking a slice of the list returned by localtime, elements 0 to 5.

How can I define and print the day, month and year from this code?

See POSIX and find there 'strftime'. The date format uses the specifiers found here. (i.e, %Y-%m-%d)

That is what my print statement does.

Update: After thinking it over, I would not recommend using my suggestion and use one of the Date modules like toolic or CountZero suggested. For an example why mine could be in error, suppose you were 1 day past the daylight savings time beginning. You might go back a day to a nonexistent hour, (when Daylight savings went into effect) by simply subtracting a day and not accounting for the hour.

Date/times are tricky.