Convert Time to Epoch Using External Variable

[Anonymous Monk]

Hope someone will be able to help me. I tried looking at previous answers and questions but did not find a solution.

Restrictions: Perl v. 5.8.4, Solaris 10, default modules

I would like to convert a specified time (e.g., Wed Feb 4 12:34:56 2015) to an epoch time using one line of Perl.

I was thinking about using:

echo "56,34,12,4,1,115"|perl -MPOSIX -e 'print mktime(<stdin>)'

However, <stdin> is treated as just one variable instead of all the variables.

[choroba]

You can use the numbers as arguments instead of reading them from the standard input:

perl -MPOSIX -e 'print mktime @ARGV' -- 56 34 12 4 1 115

If you need to use the standard input and the comma separated format, use split:

echo 56,34,12,4,1,115 | perl -MPOSIX -e 'print mktime split /,/, <>'

[QM]

Note the use of -- to tell perl (the executable) to pass the remaining arguments to the Perl script (in this case, given by -e). See Command Switches.

[johngg]

I think the -- flag to stop option parsing is only necessary if something you want treated as an argument actually looks like it might be an option, e.g. -999 or --foo. In the code given it is not required but it does no harm and using it is not a bad habit to get into.

$ perl -MPOSIX -le 'print mktime @ARGV' -- 56 34 12 4 1 115
1423053296
$ perl -MPOSIX -le 'print mktime @ARGV' 56 34 12 4 1 115
1423053296
$

I hope this is of interest.

[Anonymous Monk]

Thank you for your help!

The @ARGV seems like the best option for me.