[mickey_kamer]

Hello all,

I had a problem this week. Well two actually...

1.) I am no programmer

2.) I had to calculate a date in the past based on the date that the script runs on.

Now this was easy to do if I knew both dates before hand but was a problem for me since I didn't know anything about PERL or programming. I still don't know anything about PERL or programming but I wrote the below to solve my problem and I want to pass it along to everyone else. I bet there is an easier way of doing it but I am so proud of myself for getting this far with it now I can prune a database using a script that runs from CRON. As far as I can tell, you'll need to install the Date::Calc module from CPAN to make this work for you. That is all I think you'll need to install besides of course PERL. I deleted the Shebang line becuase I know you all know that one by now.


#Build the date string
use Date::Calc qw(Add_Delta_Days);

#Gets localtime on the computer executed on.
($d, $m, $y) = (localtime)[3,4,5];

#Adjust the offset to either a neg or pos number of days.
$offset = -60;

#Formats the date and sets the offset to subtract 60 days form the #current date. This works with the first line above.
($y2, $m2, $d2) = Add_Delta_Days($y+1900, $m+1, $d, $offset);

#Checks to see if the month is greater than 10.
if ($m2<10) {$m2 = "0" . $m2;};

#Put all six numbers into one var ie 20040412.
$myDate2 = $y2 . $m2 . $d2;

As I said this was really simple but took me two days to research and understand. I hope it helps someone else.

[Roger]

Originally Posted by mickey_kamer

Hello all,

I had a problem this week. Well two actually...

1.) I am no programmer

2.) I had to calculate a date in the past based on the date that the script runs on.

Now this was easy to do if I knew both dates before hand but was a problem for me since I didn't know anything about PERL or programming. I still don't know anything about PERL or programming but I wrote the below to solve my problem and I want to pass it along to everyone else. I bet there is an easier way of doing it but I am so proud of myself for getting this far with it now I can prune a database using a script that runs from CRON. As far as I can tell, you'll need to install the Date::Calc module from CPAN to make this work for you. That is all I think you'll need to install besides of course PERL. I deleted the Shebang line becuase I know you all know that one by now.


#Build the date string
use Date::Calc qw(Add_Delta_Days);

#Gets localtime on the computer executed on.
($d, $m, $y) = (localtime)[3,4,5];

#Adjust the offset to either a neg or pos number of days.
$offset = -60;

#Formats the date and sets the offset to subtract 60 days form the #current date. This works with the first line above.
($y2, $m2, $d2) = Add_Delta_Days($y+1900, $m+1, $d, $offset);

#Checks to see if the month is greater than 10.
if ($m2<10) {$m2 = "0" . $m2;};

#Put all six numbers into one var ie 20040412.
$myDate2 = $y2 . $m2 . $d2;

As I said this was really simple but took me two days to research and understand. I hope it helps someone else.

Mickey,

Thanks for your post and effor, but there's a better and easier solution for what you need with the Date::Manip module, with just two lines of code:

use Date::Manip;

$60date = DateCalc("today","- 60 days",\$err);
$date = UnixDate($60date,"%Y%m%d");

I hope this helps.

Roger

[mickey_kamer]

Originally Posted by Roger

Mickey,

Thanks for your post and effor, but there's a better and easier solution for what you need with the Date::Manip module, with just two lines of code:

use Date::Manip;

$60date = DateCalc("today","- 60 days",\$err);
$date = UnixDate($60date,"%Y%m%d");

I hope this helps.

Roger

Roger,

Your solution would be quick and easy however when I tested it using what you have above I got nothing but the following errors:


Bareword found where operator expected at line 2, near "$60date"
(Missing operator before date?)
Bareword found where operator expected at line 3, near "$60date"
(Missing operator before date?)
syntax error at line 2, near "$60date "
syntax error at line 3, near "$60date"
Execution aborted due to compilation errors.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Since I do not know why I am getting the errors I tied this:
use Date::Manip;
$date2 = DateCalc("today","-60 days",\$err);
$date = UnixDate($date2,"%Y%m%d");

Thinking the leading number in a varible would be a problem I changed from $60date to $date2.

Now I get the following error:
ERROR: Date::Manip unable to determine TimeZone.
Date::Manip:ate_TimeZone called at C:/Perl/site/lib/Date/Manip.pm line 661
Date::Manip:ate_Init() called at C:/Perl/site/lib/Date/Manip.pm line 779
Date::Manip:arseDateString('today') called at C:/Perl/site/lib/Date/Manip.pm line 1479
Date::Manip:ateCalc('today','-60 days','SCALAR(0x2924980)') called at test.pl line 2

So, I don't have a clue as to what is going on here.

[SatRoger]

Originally Posted by mickey_kamer

Thinking the leading number in a varible would be a problem I changed from $60date to $date2.

Now I get the following error:
ERROR: Date::Manip unable to determine TimeZone.
Date::Manip:ate_TimeZone called at C:/Perl/site/lib/Date/Manip.pm line 661
Date::Manip:ate_Init() called at C:/Perl/site/lib/Date/Manip.pm line 779
Date::Manip:arseDateString('today') called at C:/Perl/site/lib/Date/Manip.pm line 1479
Date::Manip:ateCalc('today','-60 days','SCALAR(0x2924980)') called at test.pl line 2

So, I don't have a clue as to what is going on here.

Always remember, test before writing
As far as the second part, it looks that Date::Manip is unable to determine the Time Zone of the computer it's install, so it cannot calculate today's date!
It must be something to do with the fact the server is a Windows machine
It does work fine on a Linux machine - I've tested this time


Try setting the timezone:

use Date::Manip;

Date_Init("TZ=CDT");
$date2 = DateCalc("today","- 60 days",\$err);
$date = UnixDate($date2,"%Y%m%d");

[crmpicco]

solved my problem Mickey! cheers. Picco