I'm currently writing a module that uses Time::Local. In particular the timelocal() function. Now I also want to use dates before the epoch, the example I'm using is 13th September 1965 (a significant date in my calendar :)). On Linux this gives me the correct value with no problem. However, running on Windows via the test suite I get a whole host of error messages, although standalone it just reports the value correctly.

So I decided to have a look at what is going on inside timelocal(). Unfortunately the culprit seems to be localtime(). With negative values it prints nothing. Thankfully Time::Local can cope with this and still returns a valid negative number.

My problem now is how do I stop these warnings of "Use of uninitialized value in integer addition..." etc while running my tests? Bear in mind this a Perl function running from a Perl Core module.

Do I simply not allow tests of dates before the epoch if running on Windows (I'd rather not have to do that *), or is there some way I can tell localtime the world is not going to end or perhaps a switch for the test harness that can suppress them? Or is there another way?

* Though I note that Time::Local ignores dates before the epoch in tests ... hmmm, I wonder why.

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Barbie
Birmingham Perl Mongers
Web Site: http://birmingham.pm.org/
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In reply to Windows, Time::Local and dates before the epoch by barbie

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