I am not allowed to use any new modules as this script has to be run on multiple computers.

Use Date::Calc like this:

use Date::Calc qw/Delta_Days/;
use strict;

my @date1 = (2007, 12, 24); # or split '-', '2006-12-24';
my @date2 = (2009, 4, 16);  # or split '-', '2009-4-16';
my $days  = Delta_Days(@date1, @date2);

print "There are $days days between ".
  sprintf('%04d-%02d-%02d',@date1)." and ".
  sprintf('%04d-%02d-%02d',@date1).".\n";
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-David

POSIX includes a mktime function wich takes (seconds, minutes, hours, day (0 based), month (o based), year (1900 based)) and returns the epoch seconds. So if you use it on each date to get there seconds, then subtract and divide by the number of seconds in a day you get the number of days seperating two days.

use strict;
use warnings;

my $first  = "11/15/2007";
my $second = "12/25/2007";

use POSIX qw/mktime/;
sub days_between {
        my ($start, $end) = @_;
        my ($m1, $d1, $y1) = split ("/", $start);
        my ($m2, $d2, $y2) = split ("/", $end);
        my $diff = mktime(0,0,0, $d2-1, $m2-1, $y2 - 1900) -  mktime(0
+,0,0, $d1-1, $m1-1, $y1 - 1900);
        return $diff / (60*60*24);
}

print "Between $first and $second there are ", days_between($first, $s
+econd), " days\n";
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I have no idea if this handles leap anything but I feel pretty safe in assuming that it does ;)

Here's a link to something that might be helpful:

• Re: Finding time difference from two strings

The time strings might be in a little different format, but you'll get the idea. (BTW, you'll also need to change from seconds elapsed to days elapsed.)

Why don't you ask how to install it? In the CB it didn't sound like you weren't allowed to install it.

I don't understand what you mean by "any new modules". Does it mean you can only use the core modules?

I would do this with the help of DateTime and DateTime::Duration.

Coding this by hand could prove quite tedious. In what format do you have the dates in the variables?

How about transforming both dates in days and finding the difference? Yes, you will need to account for leap years. How about finding the number of days till the end of the month of the first date, then the rest of the year, then add years until the second date, then add (days in the) months until the month number in the second date, then the few days left? Yes, you will also need to account for leap years too (multiple of 4, not of 100, but also multiple of 400). Sounds like an array there index i holds the number of days in that month (then you do the trick with the leap year verification).

Again, since I suspect this is homework, I will stop here and not post any code. This should help plenty I think.

homework.Well I am well past homework stage. here is the deal. I am a telecommunications engineer and trying to learn how to script in perl as my manager wants me to write some scripts for him :) . I would never even ask fellow monks for code for my homework. i would love to just install Date::Simple and simplify my problem. I have tried even installing it but my PPM doesnt even detect it when i refresh. I dont know what the problem is. i used time::local and tried finding out diff between two dates in seconds but i dont know i am getting really weird answers. but i get what you said. I shall try tht..if not then God Help :)

When all else fails install manually:

1. download the tarball
2. decompress it,
3. cd to the directory created, something like Date-Simple-3.02,
4. perl Makefile.PL will create a make file for you,
5. make test will ensure that everything is working nicely,
6. make all will install the module locally in the directory you are working in,
7. The module will now be in the blib/lib directory; copy it to your development lib directory, use lib on that directory, and you can use Date::Simple.

perl -e 'split//,q{john hurl, pest caretaker}and(map{print @_[$_]}(joi
+n(q{},map{sprintf(qq{%010u},$_)}(2**2*307*4993,5*101*641*5261,7*59*79
+*36997,13*17*71*45131,3**2*67*89*167*181))=~/\d{2}/g));'
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I have tried even installing it but my PPM doesnt even detect it when i refresh.

I personally believe you may want to add some repositories to your PPM's configuration.