Date::Manip::Delta(3) User Contributed Perl DocumentationDate::Manip::Delta(3)NAMEDate::Manip::Delta - Methods for working with deltas
SYNOPSIS
use Date::Manip::Delta;
$date = new Date::Manip::Delta;
DESCRIPTION
This module contains functions useful in parsing and manipulating
deltas. As used in this module, a delta refers only to the amount of
time elapsed. It includes no information about a starting or ending
time.
There are several concepts involved in understanding the properties of
a delta.
fields
A delta consists of 7 fields: years, months, weeks, days, hours,
minutes, and seconds, usually expressed as a colon-separated
string. For example:
1:2:3:4:5:6:7
refers to an elapsed amount of time 1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks, 4
days, 5 hours, 6 minutes, and 7 seconds long.
normalized
A delta can be normalized or not. A normalized delta has values
which have been made consistent with the type of data they
represent. For example, a delta of:
0:0:0:0:0:10:70
is not normalized since 70 seconds is better expressed as 1 minute
10 seconds. The normalized form of this delta would be:
0:0:0:0:0:11:10
Deltas are automatically converted to a normalized form in almost
all functions.
sets of fields
When normalizing a delta, fields are grouped together in sets where
the exact relationship is known between all fields in the set.
For example, in a normal delta, it is known that there are exactly
60 seconds in a minute, exactly 60 minutes in an hour, etc.
It is NOT known how many weeks are in a month however. So, the year
and month fields form one set, and the weeks, days, hours, minutes,
and seconds form a second set.
When normalizing a delta, no data from one set will ever be mixed
with data from another set.
As a result, the following delta is normalized:
0:3:8:0:0:0:0
Although 8 weeks is clearly more than 1 month, we don't know the
relationship between the two, so they don't mix.
exact deltas
An exact delta is one which does not include any fields which
cannot be exactly written in terms of seconds. For example, a delta
which includes a year or month field can never be exact since there
is no exact length for either.
So, the delta:
0:3:8:0:0:0:0
is not exact, but the delta:
0:0:0:12:30:0:0
is exact.
business delta
Deltas can refer to changes in either the full calendar, or they
can refer to a business calendar.
Business deltas have the added complexity that there is no definite
relationship between the number of work days in a work week (there
may be a holiday during the week). As a result, there are three
sets of fields: year/month, week, day/hour/minute/second. An exact
business delta will not have a year, month, or week field.
There IS a definite relationship between hours and days, but it is
probably not 24 hours = 1 day. Common definitions of a work day
include 8 hours long (09:00-17:00) or 9 hours long (08:00-17:00),
and any other definition may be included may be defined as long as
the start time is earlier in the day than the end time. The config
variables WorkDayBeg, WorkDayEnd, and WorkDay24Hr can be used to
defined the length of the work day.
signs
Each set of fields has a sign associated with it. For example, the
delta "1 year ago" is written as:
-1:0:0:0:0:0:0
Since there is no mixing of data between sets of fields, you can
end up with a delta with two (or three in the case of business
deltas) signs. So, the following is a fully normalized business
delta:
+1:0:-3:+3:0:0:0
Note that for a fully normalized delta, the leading field in each
set of fields will always have a sign, even when it is redundant or
unnecessary.
For example:
+2:1:+2:6:23:51:30
+0:0:+0:0:0:0:10
In a normalized delta, all fields in a set will have the same sign.
METHODS
new
new_config
new_date
new_delta
new_recur
base
tz
is_date
is_delta
is_recur
config
err Please refer to the Date::Manip::Obj documentation for these
methods.
parse
$err = $delta->parse($string [,$business]);
This takes a string and parses it to see if it is a valid delta. If
it is, an error code of 0 is returned and $delta now contains the
value of the delta. Otherwise, an error code of 1 is returned.
A valid delta is in one of two forms: colon or expanded.
The colon format is:
+Y:+M:+W:+D:+H:+MN:+S
examples:
0:0:0:0:4:3:-2
+4:3:-2
+4::3
In the colon format, from 1 to 7 of the fields may be given. For
example +D:+H:+MN:+S may be given to specify only four of the
fields. No spaces may be present in the colon format. It is
allowed to omit some of the fields. For example 5::3:30 is valid.
In this case, missing fields default to the value 0.
The expanded format is:
+Yy +Mm +Ww +Dd +Hh +MNmn +Ss
examples:
+4 hours +3mn -2second
+ 4 hr 3 minutes -2
4 hour + 3 min -2 s
4 hr 2 s (note that minutes are omitted)
A field in the expanded format (+Yy) is a sign, a number, and a
string specifying the type of field. The sign is "+", "-", or
absent (defaults to the next larger element). The valid strings
(in English) specifying the field type are:
y: y, yr, year, years
m: m, mon, month, months
w: w, wk, ws, wks, week, weeks
d: d, day, days
h: h, hr, hour, hours
mn: mn, min, minute, minutes
s: s, sec, second, seconds
Other languages have similar abbreviations.
Also, the "seconds" string may be omitted. The sign, number, and
string may all be separated from each other by any number of
whitespace. The string specifying the unit must be separated from a
following number by whitespace or a comma, so the following example
will NOT work:
4hours3minutes
At minimum, it must be expressed as:
4hours 3minutes
4 hours, 3 minutes
In the the expanded format, all fields must be given in the order:
Y M W D H MN S. Any number of them may be omitted provided the
rest remain in the correct order. Numbers may be spelled out, so
in two weeks
in 2 weeks
both work.
Most languages also allow a word to specify whether the delta is an
amount of time after or before a fixed point. In English, the word
"in" refers to a time after a fixed point, and "ago" refers to a
point before a fixed point. So, the following deltas are
equivalent:
1:0:0:0:0:0:0
in 1 year
and the following are equivalent
-1:0:0:0:0:0:0
1 year ago
The word "in" is completely ignored. The word "ago" has the affect
of reversing all signs that appear in front of the components of
the delta. In other words, the following two strings are
identical:
-12 yr 6 mon ago
+12 yr +6 mon
(don't forget that there is an implied minus sign in front of the 6
in the first string because when no sign is explicitly given, it
carries the previously entered sign).
The in/ago words only apply to the expanded format, so the
following is invalid:
1:0:0 ago
A delta may be business mode, or non-business mode. By default, a
delta is treated as a non-business mode delta, but this can be
changed in two different ways.
The first way to make a delta be business mode is to pass in the
2nd argument to the function that is non-zero. If this is done, the
delta will be a business delta by default.
The second way to specify whether a delta is business or non-
business is to include a key word in the string that is parsed.
When this is done, these strings override any value of the
$business argument.
Most languages include a word like "business" which can be used to
specify that the resulting delta is a business mode delta or a non-
business delta. Other languages have equivalent words. The
placement of the word is not important. Also, the "business" word
can be included with both types of deltas, so the following are
valid and equivalent:
in 4 hours business
4:0:0 business
business 0:0:0:0:4:0:0
There are also words "exact" or "approximate" which serve to force
the delta to be non-business mode. For backward compatibility, both
are available and serve the same purpose (they no longer determine
whether the delta is exact or not... that is determined only by the
fields that are included as described above).
input
$str = $delta->input();
This returns the string that was parsed to form the delta.
set
$err = $delta->set($field,$val);
This explicitly sets one or more fields in a delta.
$field can be any of the following:
$field $val
delta [Y,M,W,D,H,MN,S] sets the entire delta
business [Y,M,W,D,H,MN,S] sets the entire delta
normal [Y,M,W,D,H,MN,S] sets the entire delta
y YEAR sets one field
M MONTH
w WEEK
d DAY
h HOUR
m MINUTE
s SECOND
mode business, normal
An error is returned if an invalid value is passed in.
When setting the entire delta with "business" or "normal", it flags
the delta as a business or non-business delta respectively. When
setting the entire delta with "delta", the flag is left unchanged.
printf
$out = $delta->printf($in);
@out = $delta->printf(@in);
This takes a string or list of strings which may contain any number
of special formatting directives. These directives are replaced
with information contained in the delta. Everything else in the
string is returned unmodified.
A directive always begins with '%'. They are described in the
section below in the section PRINTF DIRECTIVES.
calc
$date2 = $delta->calc($date1 [,$subtract]);
$delta3 = $delta1->calc($delta2 [,$subtract]);
Please refer to the Date::Manip::Calc documentation for details.
type
$flag = $delta->type($op);
This tests to see if a delta is of a certain type. $op can be;
business : returns 1 if it is a business delta
exact : returns 1 if it is exact
value
$val = $delta->value();
@val = $delta->value();
This returns the value of the delta. In scalar context, it returns
the printable string (equivalent to the printf directive '%Dt'). In
list context, it returns a list of fields.
undef is returned if there is no valid delta stored in $delta.
PRINTF DIRECTIVES
The following printf directives are replaced with information from the
delta. Directives may be replaced by the values of a single field in
the delta (i.e. the hours or weeks field), the value of several fields
expressed in terms of one of them (i.e. the number of years and months
expressed in terms of months), or the directive may format either the
entire delta, or portions of it.
Simple directives
These are directives which print simple characters. Currently, the
only one is:
%% Replaced by a single '%'
As an example:
$delta->printf('|A %% B|');
=> |A % B|
Directives to print out a single field
The following directive is used to print out the value of a single
field. Spaces are included here for clarity, but are not in the
actual directive.
% [+] [pad] [width] Xv
Here, X is one of (y,M,w,d,h,m,s). The directive will print out the
value for that field (in the normalized delta).
If a '+' is included immediately after the '%', a sign will always
be included. By default, only negative values will include a sign.
'width' is any positive integer (without a sign). If 'width' is
included, it sets the length of the output string (unless the
string is already longer than that, in which case the 'width' is
ignored).
If 'pad' is included, it may be the character '<', '>', or '0'. It
will be ignored unless 'width' is included. If the formatted delta
field is shorter than 'width', it will be padded with spaces on the
left (if 'pad' is '<'), or right (if 'pad' is '>'), or it will be
padded on the left (after any sign) with zeroes (if 'pad' is '0').
In the following examples, $delta contains the delta: 1:2:3:4:5:6:7
$delta->printf('|Month: %Mv|');
=> |Month: 2|
$delta->printf('|Day: %+05dv|');
=> |Day: +0004|
$delta->printf('|Day: %+<5dv|');
=> |Day: +4|
$delta->printf('|Day: %>5sv|');
=> |Day: 7 |
Directives to print out several fields in terms of one of them
The following directive is used to print out the value of several
different fields, expressed in terms of a single field.
% [+] [pad] [width] [.precision] XYZ
Here, X, Y, and Z are each one of (y,M,w,d,h,m,s). The directive
will print out the value for fields Y through Z expressed in terms
of field X.
Y must come before Z in the sequence (y,M,w,d,h,m,s) or it can be
the same as Z.
So, to print the day and hour fields in terms of seconds, use the
directive:
%sdh
Any time all of X, Y, and Z are from a single set of fields, exact
relationships are used.
If the X, Y, and Z fields do not all belong to the same set of
fields, approximate relationships are used.
For non-business deltas, an approximate relationship is needed to
link the Y/M part of the delta to the W/D/H/Mn/S part. The
relationship used is that a year is assigned a length of 365.2425
days.
For business deltas, the relationship between weeks and days is set
to be the length of the business week (as defined using the
WorkWeekBeg and WorkWeekEnd config variables). Also, a factor of
X/7 * 365.2425 (where X is the number of days in a work week) is
used to determine the number of work days in a year.
If 'precision' is included, it is the number of decimal places to
print. If it is not included, but 'width' is included, precision
will be set automatically to display the maximum number of decimal
places given 'width'.
If 'pad' is included, it may be the character '<', '>', or '0', and
is used in the same way as printing out a single field.
In the following examples, $delta contains the delta: 1:2:3:4:5:6:7
$delta->printf('|%.4Myw|');
=> |14.6900|
1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks is approximately
14.6900 months
Directives to print out portions of the delta
The following directives may be used to print out some or all of a
delta.
% [+] [pad] [width] Dt
% [+] [pad] [width] DXY
The first directive will print out the entire delta.
The second will print out the delta from the X to Y fields
inclusive (where X and Y are each one of (y,M,w,d,h,m,s) and X must
come before Y in the sequence).
'pad' is optional and can be either '<' or '>' meaning to pad on
the left or right with spaces. It defaults to '<'.
If a '+' is included immediately following the '%', every field
will have a sign attached. Otherwise, only the leftmost field in
each set of fields will include a sign.
$delta->printf('|%Dt|');
=> |+1:2:+3:+4:5:6:7|
$delta->printf('|%+Dyd|');
=> |+1:+2:+3:+4|
KNOWN BUGS
None known.
BUGS AND QUESTIONS
Please refer to the Date::Manip::Problems documentation for information
on submitting bug reports or questions to the author.
SEE ALSO
Date::Manip - main module documentation
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)
perl v5.10.1 2011-12-10 Date::Manip::Delta(3)
