Re^2: Diff'ing dates

[LighthouseJ]

Using your inspiring one-liner, I morphed my script with yours and came up with this:

/bin/perl -MTime::Local -ne '{$t[1]-- && push(@epochs,timelocal(@t[5,4,3,2,1,6])) if (@t=split)} END { print $epochs[1] - $epochs[0]; }'

The END block is most likely what will change because the value of the diff will be used to determine exit status.

Thanks a lot for the fresh perspective, it was very helpful.

[ikegami]

The exit code can be controled as follows:

END { exit 1+($epochs[0] <=> $epochs[1]) }

0: first time is earlier
1: both times are the same
2: second time is earlier

perl -MTime::Local -lane'END{exit 1+($d<=>0)}$F[1]--;$d+=($.*2-3)*time
+local@F[5,4,3,2,1,6]'

[LighthouseJ]

Oh, I'm not interested in which is earlier, I know the second one will always be later (or the same) than the first. I'm more interested in the actual value of the difference but I can handle that easily enough.