SYNOPSIS
Top[% USE date %]
# use current time and default format
[% date.format %]
# specify time as seconds since epoch or 'h:m:s d-m-y' string
[% date.format(960973980) %]
[% date.format('4:20:36 21/12/2000') %]
# specify format
[% date.format(mytime, '%H:%M:%S') %]
# specify locale
[% date.format(date.now, '%a %d %b %y', 'en_GB') %]
# named parameters 
[% date.format(mytime, format = '%H:%M:%S') %]
[% date.format(locale = 'en_GB') %]
[% date.format(time   = date.now, 
               format = '%H:%M:%S', 
               locale = 'en_GB) %]
# specify default format to plugin
[% USE date(format = '%H:%M:%S', locale = 'de_DE') %]
[% date.format %]
...
              DESCRIPTION
Top
                      The Date plugin provides an easy way to generate formatted
                      time and date strings by delegating to the POSIX
                      strftime() routine.
                    
The plugin can be loaded via the familiar USE directive.
[% USE date %]
                      This creates a plugin object with the default name of
                      'date'. An alternate name can be specified as such:
                    
[% USE myname = date %]
                      The plugin provides the format() method which accepts a time
                      value, a format string and a locale name. All of these parameters are
                      optional with the current system time, default format ('%H:%M:%S
                      %d-%b-%Y') and current locale being used respectively, if
                      undefined. Default values for the time, format and/or locale may be
                      specified as named parameters in the USE directive.
                    
[% USE date(format = '%a %d-%b-%Y', locale = 'fr_FR') %]
                      When called without any parameters, the format() method
                      returns a string representing the current system time, formatted by
                      strftime() according to the default format and for the
                      default locale (which may not be the current one, if locale is set in the
                      USE directive).
                    
[% date.format %]
                      The plugin allows a time/date to be specified as seconds since the epoch,
                      as is returned by time().
                    
File last modified: [% date.format(filemod_time) %]
                      The time/date can also be specified as a string of the form 'h:m:s
                      d/m/y'. Any of the characters : / - or space may be
                      used to delimit fields.
                    
[% USE day = date(format => '%A', locale => 'en_GB') %]
[% day.format('4:20:00 9-13-2000') %]  
                    Output:
Tuesday
                      A format string can also be passed to the format() method,
                      and a locale specification may follow that.
                    
[% date.format(filemod, '%d-%b-%Y') %] [% date.format(filemod, '%d-%b-%Y', 'en_GB') %]
A fourth parameter allows you to force output in GMT, in the case of seconds-since-the-epoch input:
[% date.format(filemod, '%d-%b-%Y', 'en_GB', 1) %]
                      Note that in this case, if the local time is not GMT, then also
                      specifying '%Z' (time zone) in the format parameter will
                      lead to an extremely misleading result.
                    
                      Any or all of these parameters may be named. Positional parameters should
                      always be in the order ($time, $format, $locale).
                    
[% date.format(format => '%H:%M:%S') %] [% date.format(time => filemod, format => '%H:%M:%S') %] [% date.format(mytime, format => '%H:%M:%S') %] [% date.format(mytime, format => '%H:%M:%S', locale => 'fr_FR') %] [% date.format(mytime, format => '%H:%M:%S', gmt => 1) %] ...etc...
                      The now() method returns the current system time in seconds
                      since the epoch.
                    
[% date.format(date.now, '%A') %]
                      The calc() method can be used to create an interface to the
                      Date::Calc module (if installed on your system).
                    
[% calc = date.calc %]
[% calc.Monday_of_Week(22, 2001).join('/') %]
                    
                      The manip() method can be used to create an interface to the
                      Date::Manip module (if installed on your system).
                    
[% manip = date.manip %]
[% manip.UnixDate("Noon Yesterday","%Y %b %d %H:%M") %]
              AUTHORS
TopThierry-Michel Barral wrote the original plugin.
Andy Wardley provided some minor fixups/enhancements, a test script and documentation.
                      Mark D. Mills cloned Date::Manip from the
                      Date::Calc sub-plugin.
                    
COPYRIGHT
TopCopyright (C) 2000-2007 Thierry-Michel Barral, Andy Wardley.
This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.