I wrote this little script to get numeric months for comparisons. The input can be in initial uppercase, all uppercase, and all lowercase. I added a few other languages for fun.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my @month_numbers = (1..12);

my %month_names = (
  'English'      => [qw(January February March April May June July Aug
+ust Spetember October November December)],
  'English abbr' => [qw(Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Now De
+c)],
  'Dutch'        => [qw(januari februari maart april mei juni juli aug
+ustus september oktober november december)],
  'French'       => [qw(janvier février mars avril mai juin juillet ao
+űt septembre octobre novembre décembre)],
  'German'       => [qw(Januar Februar März April Mai Juni Juli August
+ September Oktober November Dezember)],
  'Greek'        => [qw(Ianuários Fevruários Mártios Aprílios Máios Iú
+nios Iúlios Avghustos Septémvrios Októvrios Noémvrios Thekémvrios)],
  'Italian'      => [qw(gennaio febbraio marzo aprile maggio giugno lu
+glio agosto settembre ottobre novembre dicembre)],
  'Spanish'      => [qw(enero febrero marzo abril mayo junio julio ago
+sto septiembre octubre noviembre diciembre)],
);

my %months;
for my $language (keys %month_names) {
  @months{@{$month_names{$language}}} = @month_numbers;
  @months{map(uc $_, @{$month_names{$language}})} = @month_numbers;
  @months{map(lc $_, @{$month_names{$language}})} = @month_numbers;
}

sub get_month_number {
  my $month = shift;
  return $months{$month};
}

[download]

So, if you want the month number for July, you use it like the following.

print get_month_number('July');

[download]

The above will return 7.

Now you can put dates in the right order. I'll be modularizing this shortly. 8)

Updates

Code simplified from morgon's (no @month_numbers array) and poj's (case insensitive input) suggestions.

my %months;
for my $language (keys %month_names) {
  my $number = 0;
  $months{lc $_} = ++$number for @{$month_names{$language}};
}

sub get_month_number {
  my $month = lc shift;
  return $months{$month};
}

[download]

Added aprile to Italian list of months from AnomalousMonk.

No matter how hysterical I get, my problems are not time sensitive. So, relax, have a cookie, and a very nice day!
Lady Aleena

In reply to Getting numeric month for comparisons by Lady_Aleena

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