NAME

DateTimeX::Auto - use DateTime without needing to call constructors

SYNOPSIS

use DateTimeX::Auto -auto;

my $ga_start = '2000-04-06' + 'P10Y';
printf("%s %s\n", $ga_start, ref $ga_start);  # 2010-04-06 DateTime

{
  no DateTimeX::Auto;
  my $string = '2000-04-06';
  printf( "%s\n", ref($string) ? 'Ref' : 'NoRef' );  # NoRef
}

DESCRIPTION

DateTime is awesome, but constructing DateTime objects can be annoying. You often need to use one of the formatter modules, or call DateTime->new() with a bunch of values. If you've got a bunch of constant dates in your code, then DateTimeX::Auto makes all this a bit simpler.

It uses overload to overload the q() operator, automatically turning all string constants that match particular regular expressions into DateTime objects. It also overloads stringification to make sure that DateTime objects get stringified back to exactly the format they were given in.

The date formats supported are:

yyyy-mm-dd
yyyy-mm-ddZ
yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss
yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ

The optional trailing 'Z' puts the datetime into the UTC timezone. Otherwise the datetime will be in DateTime's default (floating) timezone.

Fractional seconds are also supported, to an arbitrary number of decimal places. However, as DateTime only supports nanosecond precision, any digits after the ninth will be zeroed out.

my $dt         ='1234-12-12T12:34:56.123456789123456789';
print "$dt\n"; # 1234-12-12T12:34:56.123456789000000000

Objects are blessed into the DateTimeX::Auto::DateTime class which inherits from DateTime. They use UNIVERSAL::ref (if installed) to masquerade as plain DateTime objects.

print ref('2000-01-01')."\n";   # DateTime

Additionally, ISO 8601 durations are supported:

my $dt = '2000-01-01';
say( $dt + 'P4Y2M12D' );  # 2004-03-13

Durations are possibly not quite as clever at preserving the incoming string formatting.

The d and dt Functions

As an alternative DateTimeX::Auto can export a function called d. This might be useful if you'd prefer not to have every string constant in your code turned into a DateTime.

use DateTimeX::Auto 'd';
my $dt = d('2000-01-01');

If d is called with a string that is in an unrecognised format, it croaks. If called with no arguments, returns a DateTime representing the current time.

An alias dt is also available. They're exactly the same.

The dur Function

Called with an ISO 8601 duration string, returns a DateTimeX::Auto::Duration object.

Object-Oriented Interface

This somewhat negates the purpose of the module, but it's also possible to use it without exporting anything, in the usual normal Perl object-oriented fashion:

use DateTimeX::Auto;

my $dt1 = DateTimeX::Auto::DateTime->new('2000-01-01T12:00:00.1234');

# Traditional DateTime style
my $dt2 = DateTimeX::Auto::DateTime->new(
  year  => 2000,
  month => 2,
  day   => 3,
);

Called in the traditional DateTime style, throws an exception if the date isn't valid. Called in the DateTimeX::Auto::DateTime stringy style, returns undef if the date isn't in a recognised format, but throws if it's otherwise invalid (e.g. 30th of February).

There is similarly a DateTimeX::Auto::Duration class which is a similar thin wrapper around DateTime::Duration.

EXAMPLES

use DateTimeX::Auto ':auto';

my $date = '2000-01-01';
while ($date < '2000-02-01')
{
  print "$date\n";
  $date += 'P1D'; # add one day
}

use DateTimeX::Auto 'd';

my $date = d('2000-01-01');
while ($date < d('2000-02-01'))
{
  print "$date\n";
  $date += dur('P1D'); # add one day
}

SEE ALSO

DateTime, DateTime::Duration, DateTimeX::Easy.

AUTHOR

Toby Inkster <tobyink@cpan.org>.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2011-2012, 2014 Toby Inkster

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES

THIS PACKAGE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

cpanm DateTimeX::Auto

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install DateTimeX::Auto