use DateTime::Format::Strptime qw();
print DateTime::Format::Strptime
    ->new(
        locale => 'en',
        pattern => '%a %b %d %T %Y',
        on_error => 'croak',
    )->parse_datetime('Fri Jun 16 18:04:03 2012')
    ->strftime('%m %d %T %Y');
# '06 16 18:04:03 2012'
[download]

use DateTime::Format::RFC3339 qw();
use DateTime::Format::Strptime qw();
print DateTime::Format::RFC3339
    ->new
    ->format_datetime(DateTime::Format::Strptime
        ->new(
            locale => 'en',
            pattern => '%a %b %d %T %Y',
            on_error => 'croak',
        )->parse_datetime('Fri Jun 16 18:04:03 2012')
    );
# '2012-06-16T18:04:03+00:00'
[download]

Although someone may have a more direct approach, I do know that DateTime can help you with this.

Instead of using localtime, use my $time = DateTime->now(); and then render the output however you want with the object.

Speaking of DateTime...

• Dave's DateTime Talk
• Dave's DateTime slides

You could also do it by hand, using a regex to extract the relevant info from your input-string and some hash-lookup to translate the month to a number:

my %convert = ( "Jan" => "01", "Feb" => "02", "Mar" => "03", "Jun" => 
+"06" ,); # ... you get the idea

my $in = "Fri Jun 16 18:04:03 2012";
$in =~ /.*?\s(\w\w\w)\s(.*)$/;
my $out = $convert{$1} . " " . $2;
[download]

LOL, I was just revisiting this very same issue only two days ago, when I decided I wanted to whip up a handful of scripts I could call from web pages to print my preferred date format(s). :)


#!/usr/bin/perl -T
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
use POSIX qw(strftime);
# see man strftime(3) for format options
use strict;
my $gmtstring = strftime "%F %H:%I:%S %z", localtime;
print $gmtstring;
# This will produce: 2012-06-20 09:09:27 -0700 (your GMT may be differ
+ent)

# The following appends TZ, instead of GMT

#!/usr/bin/perl -T
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
use POSIX qw(strftime);
# see man strftime(3) for format options
use strict;
my $tzstring = strftime "%F %H:%I:%S %Z", localtime;
print $tzstring;
# Which produces: 2012-06-20 09:09:57 PDT (again, your TZ may be diffe
+rent)
[download]

Short, & sweet -- just the way I like 'em. Maybe you will too. :)
Hope this helps!


#!/usr/bin/perl -Tw

use strict;
use perl::always;

my $perl_version( 5.12.4 );

print $perl_version;