DateTimeX::Easy(3)

NAME
DateTimeX::Easy - Parse a date/time string using the best method available

SYNOPSIS
    # Make DateTimeX object for "now":
    my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("today");

    # Same thing:
    my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("now");

    # Uses ::F::Natural's coolness (similar in capability to Date::Manip)
    my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last monday");

    # ... but in 1969:
    my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last monday", year => 1969);

    # ... at the 100th nanosecond:
    my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last monday", year => 1969, nanosecond => 100);

    # ... in US/Eastern: (This will NOT do a timezone conversion)
    my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last monday", year => 1969, nanosecond => 100, timezone => "US/Eastern");

    # This WILL do a proper timezone conversion:
    my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last monday", year => 1969, nanosecond => 100, timezone => "US/Pacific");
    $dt->set_time_zone("US/Eastern");

    # Custom DateTimeX ability:
    my $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last second of last month");
    $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last second of first month of last year");
    $dt = DateTimeX::Easy->new("last second of first month of 2000");

DESCRIPTION
DateTimeX::Easy makes DateTime object creation quick and easy. It uses a variety of DateTime::Format packages to do the bulk of the parsing, with some custom tweaks to smooth out the rough edges (mainly concerning timezone detection and selection).

PARSING
Currently, DateTimeX::Easy will attempt to parse input in the following order:

DateTime - Is the input a DateTime object?
ICal - Was DT::F::ICal able to parse the input?
DateParse - Was DT::F::DateParse able to parse the input?
    A caveat, I actually use a modified version of DateParse in order to avoid DateParse's default timezone selection.

Natural - Was DT::F::Natural able to parse the input?
    Since this module barfs pretty loudly on strange input, we use a silent $SIG{__WARN__} to hide errors.

Flexible - Was DT::F::Flexible able to parse the input?
    This step also looks at the string to see if there is any timezone information at the end.

DateManip - Was DT::F::DateManip able to parse the input?
    DateManip isn't very nice with preserving the input timezone, but it's here as a last resort.

"last second of first month of year of 2005"
DateTimeX::Easy also provides additional parsing and transformation for input like:

    "first day of last month"
    "last day of last month"
    "last day of this month"
    "last day of next month"
    "last second of first month of last year"
    "ending day of month of 2007-10-02"
    "last second of first month of year of 2005"
    "last second of last month of year of 2005"
    "beginning day of month of 2007-10-02"
    "last month of year of 2007"

It will look at each sequence of "<first|last> of <period>" and do ->add, ->subtract, and ->truncate operations on the parsed DateTime object

Also, It's best to be as explicit as possible; the following will work:

    "last month of 2007"
    "last second of last month of 2005"
    "beginning day of 2007-10-02"

This won't, though:

    "last day of 2007"

You'll have to do this instead:

    "last day of year of 2007"

The reason is that the date portion is opaque to the parser. It doesn't know whether it has "2007" or "2007-10" or "now" as the last input. To fix this, you can give a hint to the parser, like "<period> of <date/time>" (as in "year of 2007" above).

WARNING: This feature is still somewhat new, so there may be bugs lurking about. Please forward failing tests/scenarios.

METHODS

  DateTimeX::Easy->new( ... )

  DateTimeX::Easy->parse( ... )

  DateTimeX::Easy->parse_date( ... )

  DateTimeX::Easy->parse_datetime( ... )

  DateTimeX::Easy->date( ... )

  DateTimeX::Easy->datetime( ... )

  DateTimeX::Easy->new_date( ... )

  DateTimeX::Easy->new_datetime( ... )
Parse the given date/time specification using ::F::Flexible or ::F::Natural and use the result to create a DateTime object. Returns a DateTime object.

You can pass the following in:

    parse       # The string or DateTime object to parse.

    year        # A year to override the result of parsing
    month       # A month to override the result of parsing
    day         # A day to override the result of parsing
    hour        # A hour to override the result of parsing
    minute      # A minute to override the result of parsing
    second      # A second to override the result of parsing

    truncate    # A truncation parameter (e.g. year, day, month, week, etc.)

    time_zone   # - Can be:
    timezone    # * A timezone (e.g. US/Pacific, UTC, etc.)
    tz          # * A DateTime special timezone (e.g. floating, local)
                #
                # - If neither "tz", "timezone", nor "time_zone" is set, then it'll use whatever is parsed.
                # - If no timezone is parsed, then the default is floating.
                # - If the given timezone is different from the parsed timezone,
                #   then a time conversion will take place (unless "soft_time_zone_conversion" is set).
                # - Either "time_zone", "timezone", "tz" will work (in that order), with "time_zone" having highest precedence
                # - See below for examples!

    soft_time_zone_conversion   # Set this flag to 1 if you don't want the time to change when a given timezone is
                                # different from a parsed timezone. For example, "10:00 UTC" soft converted to
                                # America/Los_Angeles would be "10:00 America/Los_Angeles".

    time_zone_if_floating       # The value of this option should be a valid timezone. If this option is set, then a DateTime object
                                # with a floating timezone has it's timezone set to the value.
    default_time_zone           # Same as "time_zone_if_floating"

    ambiguous   # Set this flag to 0 if you want to disallow ambiguous input like:
                # "last day of 2007" or "first minute of April"
                # This will require you to specify them as "last day of year of 2007" and "first minute of month of April"
                # instead. This flag is 1 (false) by default.

    ... and anything else that you want to pass to the DateTime->new constructor

If "truncate" is specified, then DateTime->truncate will be run after object creation.

Furthermore, you can simply pass the value for "parse" as the first positional argument of the DateTimeX::Easy call, e.g.:

    # This:
    DateTimeX::Easy->new("today", year => 2008, truncate => "hour");

    # ... is the same as this:
    DateTimeX::Easy->new(parse => "today", year => 2008, truncate => "hour");

Timezone processing can be a little complicated. Here are some examples:

    DateTimeX::Easy->parse("today"); # Will use a floating timezone

    DateTimeX::Easy->parse("2007-07-01 10:32:10"); # Will ALSO use a floating timezone

    DateTimeX::Easy->parse("2007-07-01 10:32:10 US/Eastern"); # Will use US/Eastern as a timezone

    DateTimeX::Easy->parse("2007-07-01 10:32:10"); # Will use the floating timezone

    DateTimeX::Easy->parse("2007-07-01 10:32:10", time_zone_if_floating => "local"); # Will use the local timezone

    DateTimeX::Easy->parse("2007-07-01 10:32:10 UTC", time_zone => "US/Pacific"); # Will convert from UTC to US/Pacific

    my $dt = DateTime->now->set_time_zone("US/Eastern");
    DateTimeX::Easy->parse($dt); # Will use US/Eastern as the timezone

    DateTimeX::Easy->parse($dt, time_zone => "floating"); # Will use a floating timezone

    DateTimeX::Easy->parse($dt, time_zone => "US/Pacific", soft_time_zone_conversion => 1);
                                                            # Will use US/Pacific as the timezone with NO conversion
                                                            # For example, "22:00 US/Eastern" will become "22:00 America/Los_Angeles"

    DateTimeX::Easy->parse($dt)->set_time_zone("US/Pacific"); # Will use US/Pacific as the timezone WITH conversion
                                                              # For example, "22:00 US/Eastern" will become "19:00 America/Los_Angeles"

    DateTimeX::Easy->parse($dt, time_zone => "US/Pacific"); # Will ALSO use US/Pacific as the timezone WITH conversion

EXPORT

  parse( ... )

  parse_date( ... )

  parse_datetime( ... )

  date( ... )

  datetime( ... )

  new_date( ... )

  new_datetime( ... )
Same syntax as above. See above for more information.

MOTIVATION
Although I really like using DateTime for date/time handling, I was often frustrated by its inability to parse even the simplest of date/time strings. There does exist a wide variety of DateTime::Format::* modules, but they all have different interfaces and different capabilities. Coming from a Date::Manip background, I wanted something that gave me the power of ParseDate while still returning a DateTime object. Most importantly, I wanted explicit control of the timezone setting at every step of the way. DateTimeX::Easy is the result.

THANKS
Dave Rolsky and crew for writing DateTime

SEE ALSO
DateTime

DateTime::Format::Natural

DateTime::Format::Flexible

DateTime::Format::DateManip

DateTime::Format::ParseDate

DateTime::Format::ICal

Date::Manip

AUTHOR
Robert Krimen <rokr@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 2022 by Robert Krimen and others, see the git log.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.