Because the first example uses a hex representation of an integer, and the second example uses a string of characters that happen to include a 0x and some stuff that looks (to a human) hex-ish (but not to Perl). Perl converts that string to a number following Perl's numerification of a string rules, which in this case results in a '0'.


use strict;
use warnings;
use diagnostics;

my $daTime = "0x506143ca";
print scalar localtime $daTime, "\n";

[download]

...the output...

Argument "0x506143ca" isn't numeric in localtime at mytest.pl line 10 
+(#1)
    (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an oper
+ator
    that expected a numeric value instead.  If you're fortunate the me
+ssage
    will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
    
Wed Dec 31 16:00:00 1969

[download]

As for the "Wed Dec 31 16:00:00 1969": perl -E 'say localtime 0' will yield the same result.


Dave

In reply to Re: Hex, Localtime and strings by davido
in thread Hex, Localtime and strings by theneil

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