(ar0n: Date::Calc ) Re: Date difference?

[ar0n]

At the risk of giving you a RTFM answer, see Date::Calc, and more specifically Delta_DHMS:

use Date::Calc qw/Delta_DHMS/;

...

my @date_one = qw/2002 04 25 23 12 40/;
my @date_two = qw/2002 03 23 15 25 21/;

my ($dd, $dh, $dm, $ds) = Delta_DHMS(@date_one, @date_two);

[chicks]

I'm fond of Date::Calc, so I played with your example a bit since I had never used it that way myself. I found something that seemed curious to me. Your example has the delta as negative, since @date_one is before @date_two. That makes sense. But Date::Calc seems to cause each and every element returned by Delta_DHMS to be negative. Should just the first element be negative?

[chicks]$ perl x
-33:-7:-47:-19
33:7:47:19
[chicks]$ cat x
#!/usr/bin/perl -w 

use Date::Calc qw/Delta_DHMS/;


my @date_one = qw/2002 04 25 23 12 40/;
my @date_two = qw/2002 03 23 15 25 21/;

my ($dd, $dh, $dm, $ds) = Delta_DHMS(@date_one, @date_two);
print "$dd:$dh:$dm:$ds\n";

($dd, $dh, $dm, $ds) = Delta_DHMS(@date_two, @date_one);
print "$dd:$dh:$dm:$ds\n";

[jlongino]

This is explained in  perldoc Date::Calc

* "($Dd,$Dh,$Dm,$Ds) = Delta_DHMS($year1,$month1,$day1,
  $hour1,$min1,$sec1, $year2,$month2,$day2, $hour2,$min2,$sec2);"

  This function returns the difference in days, hours, minutes and
  seconds between the two given dates with times.

  All four return values will be positive if the two dates are in
  chronological order, i.e., if date #1 comes chronologically BEFORE
  date #2, and negative (in all four return values!) if the order of t
+he
  two dates is reversed.

  This is so that the two functions ""Delta_DHMS()"" and
  ""Add_Delta_DHMS()"" (description see further below) are
  complementary, i.e., mutually inverse:

    Add_Delta_DHMS(@date1,@time1, Delta_DHMS(@date1,@time1, @date2,@ti
+me2))

  yields ""(@date2,@time2)"" again, whereas

    Add_Delta_DHMS(@date2,@time2,
        map(-$_, Delta_DHMS(@date1,@time1, @date2,@time2)))

  yields ""(@date1,@time1)"", and

    Delta_DHMS(@date1,@time1, Add_Delta_DHMS(@date1,@time1, @delta))

  yields ""@delta"" again.

  The result is zero (in all four return values) if the two dates and
  times are identical.

--Jim

[chicks]

I know it's explained in the docs, but it still seems counterintuitive.