No module in the world is going to be able to extract a timestamp like that out from just a "YYYY-MM-DD" string (it certainly could make up something on the same day (usually midnight), but . . .). If you mean you've got a date field in a database, you're similarly up the creek since that would lack the requisite resolution as well.

Now if there's actually a datetime or timestamp (or whatever your DB calls it) value then you want to change how you're extracting the value from the database (and most likely would be able to get it returned to you in your desired format without need for further munging).

Not that that's a Perl problem, per se . . .

use HTTP::Date;

I must be doing something wrong. I have use HTTP::Date; in there and I call it like this:

$date2 = parse_date($date);

but this gets returned:

"Undefined subroutine &main::parse_date called at line 986"

parse_date() is not exported by default, so you can either write

  $date2 = HTTP::Date::parse_date($date);
[download]

or import the function into your namespace

  use HTTP::Date qw(parse_date);
[download]

(See Exporter for what this is about)

Generally, if taking data from a database, I'd say to get all the date formats sorted out at DB level before they get passed to Perl. MySQL, for instance, has date_format() which means that the date can come straight out of the query without further need of manipulation.

However, for the abhorrent date format used by the HTTP protocol (required for HTTP headers including expiries, cookies, etc), I would second (or third) the use of HTTP::Date. This module and Date::Calc form the best part of my Perl date-manipulation toolkit.