I'd like to work with human-readable date format strings - ie, allow the user to select the date format for input and output using a human-readable string such as 'yyyy-mm-dd'.

Unfortunately, the popular date manipulation strftime()/strptime() functions from POSIX and Time::Piece use a non-human-friendly '%X' format. In my search, I found Time::Format::time_format(), and this does exactly what I want for output (strftime), but there is no input (strptime) equivalent.

Barring any better options, I'll probably write a regex block to convert format strings from a human-readable format to the POSIX format so I can use the standard functions. Before I embark on that however, does anyone have other suggestions? Thanks.

Edit: To clarify, instead of POSIX::strftime ( '%Y %m %d', localtime() ), I'd like to use SomeModule::SomeFunction ( 'yyyy-mm-dd', localtime() ), as Time::Format::time_format() does, but also need support for strptime().

Arnon Weinberg
Back2Front - The Web Site People

In reply to Human-readable date format strings by thewebsi

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