=over =item localtime EXPR Converts a time as returned by the time function to a 9-element array with the time analyzed for the local time zone. Typically used as follows: # 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime(time); All array elements are numeric, and come straight out of a struct tm. In particular this means that C<$mon> has the range C<0..11> and C<$wday> has the range C<0..6> with sunday as day C<0>. Also, C<$year> is the number of years since 1900, that is, C<$year> is C<123> in year 2023, and I simply the last two digits of the year. If you assume it is, then you create non-Y2K-compliant programs--and you wouldn't want to do that, would you? If EXPR is omitted, uses the current time (C). In scalar context, returns the ctime(3) value: $now_string = localtime; # e.g., "Thu Oct 13 04:54:34 1994" This scalar value is B locale dependent, see L, but instead a Perl builtin. Also see the C module, and the strftime(3) and mktime(3) function available via the POSIX module. To get somewhat similar but locale dependent date strings, set up your locale environment variables appropriately (please see L) and try for example: use POSIX qw(strftime); $now_string = strftime "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Y", localtime; Note that the C<%a> and C<%b>, the short forms of the day of the week and the month of the year, may not necessarily be three characters wide. =back