This script runs twice every hour at both 00mins15secs and 30mins15secs. I am trying to select the nearest time before the 30min or 00min but NOT AFTER from an input file that can look like this. 
//SNAGIT.TXT eg top of the hour

1.29133 ,01:59:34 
1.29132 ,01:59:59 
1.29132 ,01:59:59
.....

[download]
desired pair - 1.29132 ,01:59:59 
//SNAGIT.TXT e.g bottom of the hour

1.29020 ,01:29:52 
1.29036 ,01:30:02 
1.29035 ,01:30:12 
....

[download]
desired pair - 1.29020 ,01:29:52

the code i have come up to achieve this is below, (i need the pattern matching regex to filter out dirty data.) 
use Time::ParseDate;
use Time::Local;
...

my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdist) = localtime 
+time;
my $month = (qw(Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec)) [(lo
+caltime)[4]];
my $day = (Sun,Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu,Fri,Sat)[(localtime)[6]];
$year = $year+1900;

my $input = "SNAGIT.txt"; 
my $actualquote1=0;

## Open the SNAGIT.TXT, plus some sensible error checking

open(DATAFILE, "$input") || die("Can't open $input:!\n");

## Loop through the file one line at a time
while (<DATAFILE>) 
{
    chomp;
    if ( m{^ (\d\.\d{5}) \s*,\s* (\d\d:\d\d:\d\d) \s* (.*) $ }x ) 
    ## 1.XXXXX
    {
       
    my ( $quote, $linetime, $comment ) = ( $1, $2, $3 ); # captures
    my ( $snaghour, $snagminute, $snagsecond ) = split /:/, $linetime;
+              
    chop($quote);
                                                            
    if (parsedate($snaghour.":".$snagminute.":".$snagsecond) <= parsed
+ate($hour.":".$min.":00"))
        { $actualquote1 = $quote; }
                 
    }
                                
}

close(DATAFILE);

[download]
Now my problem is; The code works great when the script runs on the 30minute, $actualquote gets assigned as it should.

The issue is the 00 script run, $actualquote never gets assigned the value i would expect, it remains assigned to 0.

can anyone suggest what the issue is?

i have mulled over this problem for a while and came up with a really ugly hacked solution previously.

I am rewriting my code now and i am sure this type of approach is cleaner.

thanks for reading and i hope i make some sense.
conal.

In reply to Time::ParseDate issues by Conal

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