NAME

    Date::Manip - Date manipulation routines

DESCRIPTION

    Date::Manip is a series of modules designed to make any common date/time

    operation easy to do. Operations such as comparing two times,

    determining a date a given amount of time from another, or parsing

    international times are all easily done. It deals with time as it is

    used in the Gregorian calendar (the one currently in use) with full

    support for time changes due to daylight saving time.

    From the very beginning, the main focus of Date::Manip has been to be

    able to do ANY desired date/time operation easily. Many other modules

    exist which may do a subset of these operations quicker or more

    efficiently, but no other module can do all of the operations available

    in Date::Manip.

    Since many other date/time modules exist, some of which may do the

    specific operation(s) you need faster, be sure to read "SHOULD I USE

    DATE::MANIP" in Date::Manip::Misc before deciding which of the Date and

    Time modules from CPAN is for you. However, if you want one module to do

    it all, Date::Manip is the one to use.

    Date::Manip has functionality to work with several fundamental types of

    data.

    dates

        The word date is used extensively here and is somewhat misleading.

        In Date::Manip, a date consists of three pieces of information: a

        calendar date, a time of day, and time zone information. Calendar

        dates and times are fully handled. Time zones are handled as well,

        but depending on how you use Date::Manip, there may be some

        limitations as discussed below.

    delta

        A delta is an amount of time (i.e. the amount of time between two

        different dates). A delta refers only to an amount of time. It

        includes no information about a starting or ending date/time. Most

        people will think of a delta as an amount of time, but the term

        'time' is already used so much in this module that I didn't want to

        use it here in order to avoid confusion.

    recurrence

        A recurring event is something which occurs on a regular recurring

        basis.

    holidays and events

        Holidays and events are basically named dates or recurrences.

    Among other things, Date::Manip allow you to:

    *   Enter a date in practically any format you choose.

    *   Compare two dates, entered in widely different formats to determine

        which is earlier.

    *   Extract any information you want from a date using a format string

        similar to the Unix date command.

    *   Determine the amount of time between two dates, or add an amount of

        time to a date to get a second date.

    *   Work with dates with dates using international formats (foreign

        month names, 12/10/95 referring to October rather than December,

        etc.).

    *   To find a list of dates where a recurring event happens.

    Each of these tasks is trivial (one or two lines at most) with this

    package.

HOW TO USE DATE::MANIP

    There are three different ways to use Date::Manip . There are three

    interfaces (version 5 functional interface, version 6 functional, and

    version 6 object-oriented). A complete description of each is included

    in the Date::Manip::Interfaces document. The recommended (and the only

    one with access to the full functionality of the module) is using the

    Object-Oriented interface.

SEE ALSO

    Because Date::Manip performs so many operations, the documentation is

    extensive. It includes the following documents:

  Information about the different interfaces

    Read this for a detailed description of each of the interfaces,

    including information on how to choose and use the interface best suited

    to your situation.

    Date::Manip::Interfaces

        A complete description of the functional interfaces available. NOTE:

        it is recommended that you use the OO interface wherever possible as

        the functional interfaces have some imitations.

  A description of the functional interfaces:

    Date::Manip::DM5

        The version 5 functional interface

    Date::Manip::DM6

        The version 6 functional interface

  Objects and configuration

    An introduction to the Date::Manip classes used by the object-oriented

    interface and how to configure them:

    Date::Manip::Objects

        An overview of the various Date::Manip modules, and how to use them.

    Date::Manip::Config

        Information for configuring Date::Manip

  Date::Manip object-oriented modules

    These are the modules for using the object-oriented interface.

    Date::Manip::Obj

        This is the base class. All other classes listed here inherit the

        methods defined in this class.

    Date::Manip::Base

        A module for doing low-level date operations.

    Date::Manip::TZ

        A module for working with time zones.

    Date::Manip::Date

        The module for working with dates.

    Date::Manip::Delta

        The module for working with deltas (amount of time).

    Date::Manip::Recur

        The module for working with recurrences (recurring dates).

  Timezone information

    Date::Manip::DM5abbrevs

        Time zone abbreviations used in the version 5 interface.

    Date::Manip::Zones

        Time zone data included in Date::Manip used in the version 6

        interfaces.

  Miscellaneous information:

    Date::Manip::Calc

        Detailed information on how date calculations are done.

    Date::Manip::Holidays

        Information on defining and using holidays and events.

    Date::Manip::ConfigFile

        A sample config file.

    Date::Manip::Lang

        Information about the languages supported by Date::Manip and how to

        add a new language.

    Date::Manip::Lang::english

    Date::Manip::Lang::catalan

    Date::Manip::Lang::danish

    Date::Manip::Lang::dutch

    Date::Manip::Lang::finnish

    Date::Manip::Lang::french

    Date::Manip::Lang::german

    Date::Manip::Lang::italian

    Date::Manip::Lang::norwegian

    Date::Manip::Lang::polish

    Date::Manip::Lang::portugue

    Date::Manip::Lang::romanian

    Date::Manip::Lang::russian

    Date::Manip::Lang::spanish

    Date::Manip::Lang::swedish

    Date::Manip::Lang::turkish

        A description of the parseable words in each language currently

        supported by Date::Manip.

  Information about the module and administrative things:

    Date::Manip::Migration5to6

        Information on changes necessary to scripts when upgrading from 5.xx

        to 6.xx.

    Date::Manip::Changes5

        Change log for Date::Manip 5.xx

    Date::Manip::Changes5to6

        Differences between version 5.xx and 6.00 (including information on

        upgrading); this contains more details than the Migration5to6

        document.

    Date::Manip::Changes6

        Change log for Date::Manip 6.xx

    Date::Manip::Misc

        Miscellaneous information about Date::Manip (who should use it;

        acknowledgments).

    Date::Manip::History

        Musings on the history of Date::Manip written around it's 20th

        birthday.

    Date::Manip::Problems

        Common problems and instructions for reporting bugs.

    Date::Manip::Examples

        Examples of how to use Date::Manip.

LICENSE

    This script is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it

    under the same terms as Perl itself.

AUTHOR

    Sullivan Beck (sbeck@cpan.org)