#!/usr/bin/env perl use strict; use warnings; my $line = ; my $day; my $month; my $year; chomp($line); if($line =~ /^([0-3][0-9])-([01][0-9])-([0-9]{4})$/) { $day = $1; $month = $2; $year = $3; } else { die "ERROR: Wrong date format, please provide DD-MM-YYYY: $line"; } print "Date is: $year-$month-$day\n";