Just to expand on holli's excellent suggestion ...

perl -MPOSIX -le'print strftime "%x %X", localtime time' 
07/06/05 17:05:49
[download]

There are many more formatting options, have a look at the strftime docs

Update

Sorry did not read the OP too closely, he wants AM or PM so this may be more like it ...

perl -MPOSIX -le'print strftime "%r  %x", localtime time'
06:47:16 PM  07/07/05
[download]

Cheers,
R.

Pereant, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt!

use Time::Localtime;
($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) =
                                            localtime(time);
$year = $year + 1900;
$mon = $mon+1;
if($hour > 12)
{
    $hour  = $hour - 12;
    $x = 'PM';
}
elsif($hour == 12)
{    
    $x = 'PM';
}
else
{
$x = 'AM';
}
print sprintf("%02d", $mday).'/'.sprintf("%02d", $mon).'/'.sprintf("%0
+4d", $year).' '.sprintf("%02d", $hour).':'.sprintf("%02d", $min).':'.
+sprintf("%02d", $sec).' '.$x;
[download]

A little comment gube
Month = 0-based, so to display properly use $month++;
The pragma use Time::Localtime is not needed here, and please use -w and scrict.
eg:


#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict; 

my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime(t
+ime);
$year = $year + 1900;
$mon++;
my $x = "";
if($hour > 12)
{
    $hour  = $hour - 12;
    $x = 'PM';
}
else
{
$x = 'AM';
}
print "$mday/$mon/$year $hour:$min:$sec $x\n";
[download]

"We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise." - Larry Wall.

How do I get today's date

Almost all of the answers in this thread are found in the FAQ!

my $foo = localtime;
print $foo;
[download]

Update: Drat. Indeed the output from localtime follows the ctime() format, which does not include AM/PM. It does return a 24-hour time, but that's not what the OP wanted.

or indeed:

print scalar localtime;
[download]

---

Perl is Huffman encoded by design.

Nice, has that always worked in Perl 5 or is it a feature of newer Perl versions ?

There is one problem, the OP explicitly asked for AM/PM in the output, this does not give me that. Perhaps it does in some locales?

Cheers,
R.

Pereant, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt!