Loop through epoch days

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

Hi Monks

I have an epoch start-date (1135202400) and an epoch end-date (1188252000).

I'd like to loop through each day from start-date to end-date and perform an action for that day. Using a for loop, I tried to increment the number by 86400:

    for (my $i=1135202400; $i <= 1188252000; $i+86400) {
        print ">$i<\n";
    }
[download]

Which obviously didn't work and returned the message:

Useless use of addition (+) in void context at...

Then I tried this:

    for (my $i=1135202400; $i <= 1188252000; $i++) {
        print ">$i<\n" unless ($i%86400);
    }
[download]

Which returned:

>1135209600<
>1135296000<
>1135382400<
>1135468800<
>1135555200<
>1135641600<
>1135728000<
>1135814400<
>1135900800<
>1135987200<
...
[download]

a value for each day, except for the first value which, if converted to date format, turns out to be the same day as that of the start-date value, just 2 hours later...

I just need to loop through each day, from the start-date to the end-date, and when I convert the value back to date format the time must be displayed as 00:00:00 for each day, and not 02:00:00. Preferably I'd like to loop only once through each day to return a value, and not 86400 times. Thanks for any input / advice.

Comment on Loop through epoch days Select or Download Code

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Re: Loop through epoch days by jeanluca (Deacon) on Sep 27, 2007 at 10:36 UTC
try this `for (my $i=1135202400; $i <= 1188252000; $i+=86400) { print ">$i<\n"; }` [download] LuCa	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Loop through epoch days by Scrat (Monk) on Sep 27, 2007 at 10:57 UTC
Thanks LuCa, That's exactly what I was looking for. Cheers	[reply]
Re^3: Loop through epoch days by perlfan (Parson) on Sep 27, 2007 at 13:46 UTC
Scrat, you can't assign using an idiom similar to pre/post increment/decrement. Also the code, the code that goes between the semi-colons is not limited to the traditional `(my $i=0; $i<$X; $i++)`, although I am pretty sure that the middle code segment (`;$i<$X;`) must evaluate to true or false in some form because it is the stopping condition. And while we're throwing around our favorite date modules, I like Date::Pcalc.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Loop through epoch days by andreas1234567 (Vicar) on Sep 27, 2007 at 11:16 UTC
I'd use DateTime: $ cat 641322.pl use strict; use warnings; use DateTime; my $dt1 = DateTime->from_epoch( epoch => 1135202400 ); my $dt2 = DateTime->from_epoch( epoch => 1188252000 ); $dt1->add( hours => 2 ); # adjust to midnight while ($dt2 > $dt1){ print $dt1->ymd() . q{ } . $dt1->hms(); $dt1->add( days => 1 ); } __END__ $ perl -wl 641322.pl \| head 2005-12-22 00:00:00 2005-12-23 00:00:00 2005-12-24 00:00:00 2005-12-25 00:00:00 2005-12-26 00:00:00 2005-12-27 00:00:00 2005-12-28 00:00:00 2005-12-29 00:00:00 2005-12-30 00:00:00 2005-12-31 00:00:00 [download] -- Andreas	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Loop through epoch days by Scrat (Monk) on Sep 27, 2007 at 12:06 UTC
This is great: in your `while` loop you also converted the epoch values back to a character string that is compatible with MSSQL, which is exactly what I needed to do next! Thanks Andreas.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Loop through epoch days by regexes (Hermit) on Sep 27, 2007 at 11:09 UTC
Hello, Just for general information, you might want to take a look at Date::Manip Somewhat overkill for simple tasks, but it might be something you would want to investigate... regexes ------------------------- Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. -- Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the USA.	[reply]