=over =item localtime EXPR X X =item localtime Converts a time as returned by the time function to a 9-element list with the time analyzed for the local time zone. Typically used as follows: # 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime(time); All list elements are numeric and come straight out of the C `struct tm'. C<$sec>, C<$min>, and C<$hour> are the seconds, minutes, and hours of the specified time. C<$mday> is the day of the month and C<$mon> the month in the range C<0..11>, with 0 indicating January and 11 indicating December. This makes it easy to get a month name from a list: my @abbr = qw(Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec); print "$abbr[$mon] $mday"; # $mon=9, $mday=18 gives "Oct 18" C<$year> contains the number of years since 1900. To get a 4-digit year write: $year += 1900; To get the last two digits of the year (e.g., "01" in 2001) do: $year = sprintf("%02d", $year % 100); C<$wday> is the day of the week, with 0 indicating Sunday and 3 indicating Wednesday. C<$yday> is the day of the year, in the range C<0..364> (or C<0..365> in leap years.) C<$isdst> is true if the specified time occurs during Daylight Saving Time, false otherwise. If EXPR is omitted, L|/localtime EXPR> uses the current time (as returned by L|/time>). In scalar context, L|/localtime EXPR> returns the L value: my $now_string = localtime; # e.g., "Thu Oct 13 04:54:34 1994" The format of this scalar value is B locale-dependent but built into Perl. For GMT instead of local time use the L|/gmtime EXPR> builtin. See also the L|Time::Local> module (for converting seconds, minutes, hours, and such back to the integer value returned by L|/time>), and the L module's L|POSIX/C> and L|POSIX/C> functions. 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); my $now_string = strftime "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Y", localtime; # or for GMT formatted appropriately for your locale: my $now_string = strftime "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Y", gmtime; Note that 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. The L and L modules provide a convenient, by-name access mechanism to the L|/gmtime EXPR> and L|/localtime EXPR> functions, respectively. For a comprehensive date and time representation look at the L module on CPAN. Portability issues: L. =back