Why all the contortions? Keep it simple and talk to your database: 

$ echo "select to_char(to_date('19830501?','YYYYMMDD'), 'FMMon FMdd, y
+yyy?')" \
  | perl -MDBI -ne '
      print DBI->connect("dbi:Pg:")->selectall_arrayref($_)->[0]->[0],
+ "\n";
   ';
May 1, 1983?

[download]

;-)

P.S. (Looks I am the first one to spot the terminal question mark in your example? Does that get me Mega-XP too?)

In reply to Re: Coolest way to decode YYYYMMDD? by erix
in thread Coolest way to decode YYYYMMDD? by locked_user sundialsvc4

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