Email::Date - Find and Format Date Headers use Email::Date; my $email = join '', <>; my $date = find_date($email); print $date->ymd; my $header = format_date($date->epoch); Email::Simple->create( header => [ Date => $header, ], body => '...', ); RFC 2822 defines the "Date:" header. It declares the header a required part of an email message. The syntax for date headers is clearly laid out. Stil, even a perfectly planned world has storms. The truth is, many programs get it wrong. Very wrong. Or, they don't include a "Date:" header at all. This often forces you to look elsewhere for the date, and hoping to find something. For this reason, the tedious process of looking for a valid date has been encapsulated in this software. Further, the process of creating RFC compliant date strings is also found in this software.

FUNCTIONS
my $time_piece = find_date $email; "find_date" accepts an email message in any format Email::Abstract can understand. It looks through the email message and finds a date, converting it to a Time::Piece object. If it can't find a date, it returns false. "find_date" is exported by default. my $date = format_date; # now my $date = format_date( time - 60*60 ); # one hour ago "format_date" accepts an epoch value, such as the one returned by "time". It returns a string representing the date and time of the input, as specified in RFC 2822. If no input value is provided, the current value of "time" is used. "format_date" is exported by default. my $date = format_gmdate; "format_gmdate" is identical to "format_date", but it will return a string indicating the time in Greenwich Mean Time, rather than local time. "format_gmdate" is exported on demand, but not by default. This module is maintained by the Perl Email Project <http://emailproject.perl.org/wiki/Email::Date> Email::Abstract, Time::Piece, Date::Parse, perl. Casey West, <casey@geeknest.com>. Ricardo SIGNES, <rjbs@cpan.org>. Copyright (c) 2004 Casey West. All rights reserved. This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.