Timestamp Format Help!

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

Hi there Monks!
Trying to get a timestamp format going and I can't understand how to get this to have this format:
1900-01-01 00:00:00.000
Any help about how to get to the format above?

my $tstamp = get_timestamp(); 

print "\n\n $tstamp \n\n"; # 1900-01-01 00:00:00.000

sub get_timestamp {
my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime(t
+ime);

$year=$year+1900;

return $year . sprintf('%02u%02u %02u%02u%02u', $mon, $mday, $hour, $m
+in, $sec);
}
[download]

Thanks for the help!

Comment on Timestamp Format Help! Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Timestamp Format Help! by Corion (Patriarch) on Mar 05, 2010 at 19:23 UTC
`use POSIX qw(strftime); print strftime '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.000', localtime;` [download] Your error seems to be that you don't know what sprintf does, and not telling us what you get instead.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Timestamp Format Help! by almut (Canon) on Mar 05, 2010 at 20:15 UTC
Using `POSIX::strftime()` is certainly the way to go... but here's what your `get_timestamp()` could have looked like — just in case you want to learn from what you did wrong. `sub get_timestamp { my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year) = localtime(time); return sprintf('%u-%02u-%02u %02u:%02u:%02u.000', $year+1900, $mon+1, $mday, $hour, $min, $sec); }` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Timestamp Format Help! by jffry (Hermit) on Mar 05, 2010 at 20:24 UTC
I, too, had this question a while back. Some time passed, I forgot what I was told, and I had the same question all over again. I felt foolish trying to manipulate strings when someone had already solved in the problem 20 or more years ago (in C/Unix, at least). I think the meta-problem is that I routinely forget that for a common problem, someone else has already solved it and probably published the solution. This is true even more so in something as stable, mature, and widespread as Perl 5. If there is a change I need to incorporate into my coding behavior, it is to be able to recognize a common problem before wrassling with it too long and simply lookup the answer instead. Some helpful links: How can I format the output of localtime? Fast(er) date parsing How do I find the day or week of the year? How do I get a file's timestamp in perl?	[reply]
Re: Timestamp Format Help! by Corion (Patriarch) on Mar 05, 2010 at 19:22 UTC
Duplicate, sorry `use POSIX qw(strftime); print strftime '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.000', localtime;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]