Seeing if a Time is Within a Range

Dru has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Greetings Monks, Is anyone aware of a module that would help me determine if a time in this format:

02:29:40

Falls between a start and stop time in the same format? I came up with this elementray way of converting the hours, minutes, and seconds into a number like so:

my ($ace_hour_start,$ace_min_start,$ace_sec_start) =
  (split/:/, $ace_start_time);
   $ace_hour_start = $ace_hour_start * 100;
   $ace_min_start = $ace_min_start * 10;
   $ace_start_time = $ace_hour_start + $ace_min_start + $ace_sec_start
+;
 
my ($ace_hour_stop,$ace_min_stop,$ace_sec_stop) = 
 (split/:/, $ace_stop_time);
  $ace_hour_stop = $ace_hour_stop * 100;
  $ace_min_stop = $ace_min_stop * 10;
  $ace_stop_time = $ace_hour_stop + $ace_min_stop + $ace_sec_stop;
[download]

But I'm thinking there has got to be an easier/cleaner way. I looked through the plethora of Date/Time modules on CPAN and nothing is jumping out at me (but I'm sure it's right in front of me).

I appreciate any suggestions.

Comment on Seeing if a Time is Within a Range Download Code

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Re: Seeing if a Time is Within a Range by blokhead (Monsignor) on Oct 26, 2004 at 18:33 UTC
As long as all the fields are all zero-padded, the standard lexical string order is what you want. No need to do any fancy conversion, the string comparison operators will work fine: `my $date = ...; if ( $date ge $begin and $date le $end ) { ... }` [download] blokhead	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Seeing if a Time is Within a Range by pg (Canon) on Oct 26, 2004 at 18:34 UTC
This looks like 24-hour hh::mm::ss format, if it is strictly followed, what's wrong with a straight 'ge', or 'le'? `use strict; use warnings; print between('02:03:04', '02:03:01', '13:00:24'), "\n"; print between('02:03:04', '02:03:05', '13:00:24'), "\n"; print between('14:03:04', '02:03:01', '13:00:24'), "\n"; print between('14:03:04', '02:03:01', '15:00:24'), "\n"; sub between { my ($t, $begin, $end) = @_; return (($t ge $begin) && ($t le $end)); }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Seeing if a Time is Within a Range by Anonymous Monk on Oct 26, 2004 at 20:19 UTC
Just a note of caution when implemention a "between" function. This seems obvious, but I know its bitten me a couple of times. Be sure you use the correct comparisons for the data your working with. You have four choices of what "between" means: (time >= start and time <= end) (time > start and time <= end) (time >= start and time < end) (time > start and time < end) Make sure you use the correct comparison for your application. E.g 01:01:00 – event 1 happened 01:59:00 – event 2 happened 02:00:00 – event 3 happened 02:01:00 – event 4 happened 02:59:00 – event 5 happened Ask yourself: If you have one comparison from 01:00:00 to 02:00:00 and then a second comparison from 02:00:00 to 03:00:00, where do you want event 3 to show up? Both? First? Second? Neither?	[reply]
Re^3: Seeing if a Time is Within a Range by pg (Canon) on Oct 26, 2004 at 21:21 UTC
You are absolutely right! Just a side note, if you use SQL between operator, you have to be aware that the values specified after the BETWEEN operator are inclusive. So if you say: `select first_name, last_name, credit_limit from customer where credit_limit between 500 and 800` [download] The result set will include those ones with credit limit equal to 500 or 800. If you want to exclude those people, you have to write a query like this: `select first_name, last_name, credit_limit from customer where credit_limit > 500 and credit_limit < 800` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Seeing if a Time is Within a Range by fglock (Vicar) on Oct 26, 2004 at 18:30 UTC
You could just remove the colons and have the same effect: `$start_time =~ s/://g;`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Seeing if a Time is Within a Range by LTjake (Prior) on Oct 27, 2004 at 15:32 UTC
You might try DateTime::Span. You can do: `if ( $span->contains( $datetime ) ) { # ... }` [download] To see if it falls within "start" and "end". -- "Go up to the next female stranger you see and tell her that her "body is a wonderland." My hypothesis is that she’ll be too busy laughing at you to even bother slapping you." (src)	[reply] [d/l]