you were on the right track. The long number is the number of seconds since the EPOC (somewhere in 1970). You can manipulate it as follows:

# from O'REILLY's book
$thisDay = (Sun,Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu,Fri,Sat)[(localtime)[6]];  # will retu
+rn the current day of the week
# localtime is typically used as follows:
($sec, $min, $hour, $mday, $mon, $year, $wday, $yday, $isdst) = localt
+ime;
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I suggest you refer to the manual for further inforamtion (see this)

Thanks.

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