You have to call it twice, or generate your own scalar version from the list output. What happens is, if you call localtime in a string context, perl knows this and localtime generates a string, whereas if you call it in list context, you get the raw list output. There is a module called Timelocal that lets you convert a date to seconds since the Epoch, but really the best thing to do probably is to store the output of time() for the time you want, and then feed it through localtime like so 
$str = localtime($storedtime);
@date = localtime($storedtime);

[download]

                - Ant

In reply to Re: Converting between localtime scalar and list contexts by suaveant
in thread Converting between localtime scalar and list contexts by dragonchild

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.