For date calculations use the cpan module: Date::Calc and possibly Date::Parse

Here's a quick and dirty script that takes the dates you specified and prints the difference in days between them. Note that there are differences between how Date::Parse treats month ranges and how Date::Calc does.

use Date::Parse;
use Date::Calc qw(Delta_Days);

use strict;

my $base = 'Jan 1, 1980';
my $start = 'Feb 1, 1981';
my $end = 'Feb 5, 1982';

print days_diff($start, $base) . "\n"; # 397
print days_diff($end, $base) . "\n"; # 766

sub days_diff {
    my $minuend = shift;
    my $subtrahend = shift;
    
    my (undef,undef,undef,$d2,$m2,$y2,undef) = strptime($minuend);
    my (undef,undef,undef,$d1,$m1,$y1,undef) = strptime($subtrahend);

    return Delta_Days($y1, $m1+1, $d1, $y2, $m2+1, $d2);
}

1;

__END__

[download]

In reply to Re: date ranges as days by wind
in thread date ranges as days by punkish

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.