#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# Hi Monks,
#
# This subroutine might come in handy when having to work with dates in their
# various formats. This sub was meant to work similar to sprintf()
#
# You can use the following variables:
#
# %s    Seconds
# %m    Minutes
# %h    Hours
# %D    Day of Month
# %M    Month of Year
# %y    Year (2-digits)
# %Y    Year (4-digits)
#
# GetDate() also has a second (optional) parameter, which is the number of
# days from now.
#
# Nr:     Day:
# -1      yesterday
# 0       today (optional)
# 1       tomorrow
# 2       the day after tomorrow ... et cetera
#
# Hope you like it, Leon

use strict;

sub GetDate($;$)
{
 my ($s,$m,$h,$D,$M,$y,$Y,$Inp)=((localtime(time-(-($_[1]||0)*86400)))[0..5,5],shift||"");
 $M++; $y%=100; $Y+=1900;
 $Inp=~s/%([\d.-]*)([smhDMYy])/sprintf("%$1d",eval "\$$2")/ge;
 $Inp;
}

# Examples

#                                                               Output:
print GetDate("%.2D-%.2M-%.4Y,%.2h:%.2m:%.2s\n");               # '21-05-2001,11:55:01' + "\n"
print GetDate("%.2D-%.2M-%.4Y,%.2h:%.2m:%.2s\n",-22);           # '29-04-2001,11:55:01' + "\n"
print GetDate("%.2D-%.2M-%.4Y,%.2h:%.2m:%.2s\n",180);           # '17-11-2001,11:55:01' + "\n"
print GetDate("time: %.2h:%.2m date: %.2D/%.2M/%.4Y\n");        # 'time: 11:55 date: 21/05/2001' + "\n"
print GetDate("%.2D%.2M%.2y");                                  # '210501'
print GetDate("%.2s seconds\n");                                # '01 seconds' + "\n"
print GetDate("%s seconds\n");                                  # '1 seconds' + "\n"