Let me show how you'd do this with the Date::Manip module

use warnings; use strict;
use Date::Manip::Date; 
my $today = Date::Manip::Date->new("today");
print $today->printf("Today is %A.\n");
my $day_of_week = $today->printf("%w"); # day of week as number, 7 mea
+ns Sunday
__END__
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