libdate-manip-perl 6.52-1 / usr / share / perl5 / Date / Manip / Delta.pod

# Copyright (c) 1995-2015 Sullivan Beck. All rights reserved.
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
# under the same terms as Perl itself.

=pod

=head1 NAME

Date::Manip::Delta - Methods for working with deltas

=head1 SYNOPSIS

   use Date::Manip::Delta;
   $date = new Date::Manip::Delta;

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This module contains functions useful in parsing and manipulating
deltas.  As used in this module, a delta refers only to the amount of
time elapsed.  It includes no information about a starting or ending
time.

There are several concepts involved in understanding the properties
of a delta.

=over 4

=item B<standard and business delta>

Deltas can refer to changes in either the full calendar (standard
deltas), or they can refer to a business calendar.

With a business delta, non-business days are ignored.  Typically, this
includes holidays and weekends.  In addition, the part of the day
outside of business hours is also ignored, so a day may only run from
08:00 to 17:00 and everything outside of this is ignored.

The length of a work day is usually not 24 hours.  It is defined by
the start and end of the work day and is set using the config
variables: WorkDayBeg and WorkDayEnd (WorkDay24Hr may be used to
specify a 24-hour work day).  The work week is defined using the
config variables: WorkWeekBeg and WorkWeekEnd.

Daylight saving time will have no impact on business calculations
because time changes occur at night (usually on the weekends) outside
of business hours.  As such, they are ignored in business
calculations.

=item B<fields>

A delta consists of 7 fields: years, months, weeks, days, hours,
minutes, and seconds, usually expressed as a colon-separated string.
For example:

   1:2:3:4:5:6:7

refers to an elapsed amount of time 1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks, 4 days,
5 hours, 6 minutes, and 7 seconds long.

=item B<normalized>

A delta can be normalized or not. A normalized delta has values which
have been made consistent with the type of data they represent. For
example, a delta of:

   0:0:0:0:0:10:70

is not normalized since 70 seconds is better expressed as 1 minute
10 seconds. The normalized form of this delta would be:

   0:0:0:0:0:11:10

By default, deltas are converted to a normalized form in most
functions that create/modify a delta, but this can be overridden.

=item B<sets of fields>

When normalizing a delta, fields are grouped together in sets where
the exact relationship is known between all fields in the set.

For example, there is an exactly known relationship between seconds
and minutes (Date::Manip ignores leap seconds, so there are always
60 seconds in a minute), so they will be in one set.

Likewise, the relationship between years and months is known, so
they will be in one set.  There is no known relationship between
months and weeks though, so they will be in separate sets.

A standard (i.e. non-business) delta contains 3 sets of
fields:

   approximate:  year, month
   semi-exact:   week, day
   exact:        hour, minute, second

The following known relationships exist:

   1 year   = 12 months
   1 week   = 7 days
   1 hour   = 60 minutes
   1 minute = 60 seconds

The following semi-approximate relationships are used to link
the semi-exact and exact fields when required:

   1 day    = 24 hours

The following approximate relationship is used to link the
approximate fields to the semi-exact fields when required:

   1 year = 365.2425

Business deltas differ slightly,  Since daylight saving times
effects are ignored, the length of the work day is constant, but
due to there being holidays, the length of a week is not known,
so a business delta has the following sets of fields:

   approximate:  year, month
   semi-exact:   week
   exact:        day, hour, minute, second

and the relationships used are:

   1 year   = 12 months
   1 day    = length of business day
   1 hour   = 60 minutes
   1 minute = 60 seconds

The semi-approximate relationship may be used to link the
semi-approximate and exact fields together:

   1 week   = X  (length of business week in days)

and the following approximate relationship may be used:

   1 year   = X/7 * 365.2425

When normalizing a delta, no data from one set will ever be mixed
with data from another set.

As a result, the following delta is normalized:

   0:3:8:0:0:0:0

Although 8 weeks is clearly more than 1 month, we don't know the
relationship between the two, so they don't mix.

=item B<exact, semi-exact, and approximate deltas>

An exact delta is one which every value is of an exactly known length
(i.e. it only includes the exact fields listed above).

A semi-exact delta is a delta which includes the exact fields as well
as semi-exact ones.

An approximate delta can include any of the fields.

So, the delta:

   0:3:8:0:0:0:0

is approximate.  The delta:

   0:0:0:0:30:0:0

is exact.  The delta:

   0:0:0:1:30:0:0

is semi-exact (if it is non-business) or exact (if it is business).

The term "semi-exact" needs a little explanation.  Date::Manip tries to
do things in a way which humans think of them.  It is immediately
recognized that the approximate fields are of completely unknown
length, and the exact fields are of known length. The "semi-exact"
fields are termed such since humans have a way of looking at them
which is consistent, even if it is not exact.

For example, a day is thought of as the same wall clock time on two
successive days, so from noon on one day to noon the next day is one
day.  Usually that is 24 hours (for standard deltas), but if you cross
a daylight saving time change, it might be 23 or 25 hours (or
something different if a very irregular time change occurs).  So where
possible, in a standard delta, a day field will change the date, but
leave the time alone.

Likewise, a business week is thought of as 7 days (i.e. Wednesday to
Wednesday) regardless of whether there was a holiday in there.

=item B<signs>

Each field has a sign associated with it. For example, the
delta "1 year ago" is written as:

   -1:0:0:0:0:0:0

The sign of any field is optional, and if omitted, it is the
same as the next higher field.  So, the following are identical:

   +1:2:3:4:5:6:7
   +1:+2:+3:+4:+5:+6:+7

Since there is no mixing of data between sets of fields, you can end
up with a delta with as many as four signs. So, the following is a
fully normalized business delta:

   +1:0:-3:+3:1:0:0

=item B<fractional values>

Fractional fields are allowed such as:

   1.25 days
   1.1 years

When parsing a delta with fractional fields, the delta will ALWAY be
normalized using the exact, semi-exact, and approximate relationships
described above.

For example, for a non-business delta, a delta of 1.1 years will use
the following relationships:

   1 year = 365.2425 days
   1 year = 12 months
   1 day  = 24 hours

Since the delta includes approximate fields, as much of the 1.1 year
portion of the delta will be stored in the approximate fields as
possible.

Using the above approximate relationships, we can see that:

   1 month = 365.2425/12 days = 30.436875 days

so

   1.1 years
   = 1 year, 1.2 months
   = 1 year, 1 month, 6.087375 days
   = 1 year, 1 month, 6 days, 2 hours, 5 minutes, 49 seconds

Fractional seconds will be discarded (no rounding).

=back

=head1 METHODS

=over 4

=item B<new>

=item B<new_config>

=item B<new_date>

=item B<new_delta>

=item B<new_recur>

=item B<base>

=item B<tz>

=item B<is_date>

=item B<is_delta>

=item B<is_recur>

=item B<config>

=item B<err>

Please refer to the Date::Manip::Obj documentation for these methods.

=item B<parse>

   $err = $delta->parse($string [,$business] [,$no_normalize]);

This takes a string and parses it to see if it is a valid delta. If it is,
an error code of 0 is returned and $delta now contains the value of the
delta. Otherwise, an error code of 1 is returned and an error condition
is set in the delta.

A valid delta is in one of two forms: compact or expanded.

The compact format is a colon separated list of numbers (with optional
signs):

   Examples:
      0:0:0:0:4:3:-2
      +4:3:-2
      +4::3

In the compact format, from 1 to 7 of the fields may be given.  For
example D:H:MN:S may be given to specify only four of the fields.  No
spaces may be present in the compact format. It is allowed to omit
some of the fields. For example 5::3:30 is valid. In this case,
missing fields default to the value 0.

The expanded format has the fields spelled out in some language specific
form:

   Examples:
      +4 hours +3mn -2second
      + 4 hr 3 minutes -2
      4 hour + 3 min -2 s
      4 hr 2 s

A field in the expanded format has an optional sign, a number, and a string
specifying the type of field.  If the sign is absent, it defaults to the
sign of the next larger element.  So the following are equivalent:

   -4 hr 3 min 2 sec
   -4 hr -3 min -2 sec

The valid strings describing each of the fields is contained in "Delta field
names" section of the appropriate Date::Manip::Lang::<LANGUAGE> document.
Refer to the Date::Manip::Lang document for a list of languages.

For example, for English, the document is Date::Manip::Lang::English and
the field names include strings like:

   y:  y, yr, year, years
   m:  m, mon, month, months
   w:  w, wk, ws, wks, week, weeks
   d:  d, day, days
   h:  h, hr, hour, hours
   mn: mn, min, minute, minutes
   s:  s, sec, second, seconds

This list may not be complete.  You should refer to the language document
for the full list.

The "seconds" string may be omitted.  The sign, number, and string may
all be separated from each other by any amount of whitespace. The
string specifying the unit must be separated from a following number
by whitespace or a comma, so the following example will NOT work:

   4hours3minutes

At minimum, it must be expressed as:

   4hours 3minutes
   4 hours, 3 minutes

In the the expanded format, all fields must be given in the order: Y M
W D H MN S.  Any number of them may be omitted provided the rest
remain in the correct order. Numbers may be spelled out, so

   in two weeks
   in 2 weeks

both work.

Most languages also allow a word to specify whether the delta is an
amount of time after or before a fixed point. In English, the word "in"
refers to a time after a fixed point, and "ago" refers to a point before
a fixed point. So, the following deltas are equivalent:

  1:0:0:0:0:0:0
  in 1 year

and the following are equivalent

  -1:0:0:0:0:0:0
  1 year ago

The word "in" is completely ignored. The word "ago" has the affect of
reversing all signs that appear in front of the components of the
delta.  In other words, the following two strings are identical:

   -12 yr  6 mon ago
   +12 yr +6 mon

(don't forget that there is an implied minus sign in front of the 6 in
the first string because when no sign is explicitly given, it carries
the previously entered sign).

The in/ago words only apply to the expanded format, so the following
is invalid:

   1:0:0 ago

A delta may be standard (non-business) or business. By default, a delta
is treated as a non-business delta, but this can be changed in two
different ways.

The first way to make a delta be business is to pass in the 2nd
argument to the function.  The $business argument may be a string
'standard' or 'business' to explicitly set the type of delta.  Alternately,
any non-zero value for $business will force the delta to be a business
delta.

So the following are identical:

   $delta->parse($string,'business');
   $delta->parse($string,1);

and the following are identical:

   $delta->parse($string);
   $delta->parse($string,'standard');
   $delta->parse($string,0);

The second way to specify whether a delta is business or non-business
is to include a key word in the string that is parsed. When this is
done, these strings override any value of the $business argument.

Most languages include a word like "business" which can be used to
specify that the resulting delta is a business delta or a
non-business delta. Other languages have equivalent words. The
placement of the word is not important. Also, the "business" word can
be included with both types of deltas, so the following are valid and
equivalent:

   in 4 hours business
   4:0:0 business
   business 0:0:0:0:4:0:0

There are also words "exact" or "approximate" which may be included in
the delta for backward compatibility.  However, they will be ignored.
The accuracy of delta (exact, semi-exact, approximate) will be
determined only by what fields are present in the delta.

When a delta is parsed, it is automatically normalized, unless the
$no_normalize argument is passed in.  It can be the string 'nonormalize'
or any non-zero value.  If passing it as a non-zero value, the $business
argument MUST be included (though it can be zero) in order to avoid
ambiguity.

So the following are equivalent:

   $delta->parse($string,'nonormalize');
   $delta->parse($string,$business,1);

=item B<input>

   $str = $delta->input();

This returns the string that was parsed to form the delta.

=item B<set>

   $err = $delta->set($field,$val [,$no_normalize]);

This explicitly sets one or more fields in a delta.

$field can be any of the following:

   $field   $val

   delta    [Y,M,W,D,H,MN,S]  sets the entire delta
   business [Y,M,W,D,H,MN,S]  sets the entire delta
   standard [Y,M,W,D,H,MN,S]  sets the entire delta
   y        YEAR              sets one field
   M        MONTH
   w        WEEK
   d        DAY
   h        HOUR
   m        MINUTE
   s        SECOND

   mode     business, standard

An error is returned if an invalid value is passed in.

When setting the entire delta with "business" or "normal", it flags
the delta as a business or non-business delta respectively. When
setting the entire delta with "delta", the flag is left unchanged.
Also, when setting the entire delta, signs are not carried from one
field to another.

By default, a delta is normalized, but passing $no_normalize as any
true value, this will not be done.

If $no_normalize is not passed in, the current value for the delta
(which defaults to 0) will be used.

For backwards compatibility, 'normal' can be used in place of 'standard',
both as $field or as $val.

=item B<printf>

   $out = $delta->printf($in);
   @out = $delta->printf(@in);

This takes a string or list of strings which may contain any number of
special formatting directives. These directives are replaced with
information contained in the delta. Everything else in the string is
returned unmodified.

A directive always begins with '%'. They are described in the section
below in the section PRINTF DIRECTIVES.

=item B<calc>

   $date2  = $delta->calc($date1 [,$subtract]);
   $delta3 = $delta1->calc($delta2 [,$subtract]);

Please refer to the Date::Manip::Calc documentation for details.

=item B<type>

   $flag = $delta->type($op);

This tests to see if a delta is of a certain type. $op can be;

   business  : returns 1 if it is a business delta
   standard  : returns 1 if it is a standard (non-business delta)

   exact     : returns 1 if it is exact
   semi      : returns 1 if it is semi-exact
   approx    : returns 1 if it is approximate

=item B<value>

   $val = $delta->value();
   @val = $delta->value();

This returns the value of the delta. In scalar context, it returns
the printable string (equivalent to the printf directive '%Dt'). In
list context, it returns a list of fields.

An empty string is returned if there is no valid delta stored in $delta.

=item B<convert>

   $delta->convert($to);

This converts a delta from one type to another.  $to can be 'exact',
'semi', or 'approx'.  The conversion uses the approximate relationships
listed above to convert the delta.

For example, if the exact non-business delta $delta contains:

   0:0:0:0:44:0:0

then the following call:

   $delta->convert('semi')

would produce the semi-exact delta:

   0:0:0:1:20:0:0

The result will always be normalized, and will be strictly positive or
negative (i.e. all fields will have the same sign).

This function can be used to take an exact delta and turn it into a
semi-exact delta (with a day being treated as 24 hours in non-business
mode).

There is currently no support for converting business to non-business
(or vice-versa).

=item B<cmp>

   $flag = $delta1->cmp($delta2);

This compares two deltas (using the approximate relationships listed
above) and returns -1, 0, or 1 which could be used to sort them by length
of time.

Both deltas must be valid, and both must be either business or
non-business deltas.  They do not need to be the same out of exact,
semi-exact, and approximate.

undef will be returned if either delta is invalid, or you try to compare
a business and non-business delta.

=back

=head1 PRINTF DIRECTIVES

The following printf directives are replaced with information
from the delta. Directives may be replaced by the values of a
single field in the delta (i.e. the hours or weeks field),
the value of several fields expressed in terms of one of them
(i.e. the number of years and months expressed in terms of
months), or the directive may format either the entire delta,
or portions of it.

=over 4

=item B<Simple directives>

These are directives which print simple characters. Currently, the only one is:

   %%    Replaced by a single '%'

As an example:

  $delta->printf('|%%|');
     => |%|

=item B<Directives to print out a single field>

The following directive is used to print out the value of a single
field. Spaces are included here for clarity, but are not in the
actual directive.

   % [+] [pad] [width] Xv

Here, X is one of (y,M,w,d,h,m,s). The directive will print out the
value for that field (in the normalized delta).

If a '+' is included immediately after the '%', a sign will always be
included. By default, only negative values will include a sign.

'width' is any positive integer (without a sign). If 'width' is
included, it sets the length of the output string (unless the string
is already longer than that, in which case the 'width' is ignored).

If 'pad' is included, it may be the character '<', '>', or '0'. It
will be ignored unless 'width' is included.  If the formatted delta
field is shorter than 'width', it will be padded with spaces on the
left (if 'pad' is '<'), or right (if 'pad' is '>'), or it will be
padded on the left (after any sign) with zeroes (if 'pad' is '0').

In the following examples, $delta contains the delta: 1:2:3:4:5:6:7

   $delta->printf('|Month: %Mv|');
      => |Month: 2|

   $delta->printf('|Day: %+05dv|');
      => |Day: +0004|

   $delta->printf('|Day: %+<5dv|');
      => |Day:    +4|

   $delta->printf('|Day: %>5sv|');
      => |Day: 7    |

=item B<Directives to print out several fields in terms of one of them>

The following directive is used to print out the value of several
different fields, expressed in terms of a single field.

   % [+] [pad] [width] [.precision] XYZ

Here, X, Y, and Z are each one of (y,M,w,d,h,m,s). The directive will
print out the value for fields Y through Z expressed in terms of field X.

Y must come before Z in the sequence (y,M,w,d,h,m,s) or it can be the
same as Z.

So, to print the day and hour fields in terms of seconds, use the directive:

   %sdh

Any time all of X, Y, and Z are from a single set of fields, exact
relationships are used.

If the X, Y, and Z fields do not all belong to the same set of fields,
approximate relationships are used.

For non-business deltas, an approximate relationship is needed to link
the Y/M part of the delta to the W/D part and a semi-approximate
relationship is needed to link the W/D part with the H/MN/S part.
These relationships are:

   1 day    = 24 hours
   1 year   = 365.2425

For business deltas, the approximate and semi-approximate relationships
used to link the fields together are:

   1 week   = X    (length of business week in days)
   1 year   = X/7 * 365.2425

For business deltas, the length of the day is defined using
WorkDayStart and WorkDayEnd.  For non-business deltas, a day is 24
hours long (i.e. daylight saving time is ignored).

If 'precision' is included, it is the number of decimal places to
print. If it is not included, but 'width' is included, precision will
be set automatically to display the maximum number of decimal places
given 'width'.

If 'pad' is included, it may be the character '<', '>', or '0', and is
used in the same way as printing out a single field.

In the following examples, $delta contains the delta: 1:2:3:4:5:6:7

   $delta->printf('|%.4Myw|');
      => |14.6900|
      1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks is approximately
      14.6900 months

=item B<Directives to print out portions of the delta>

The following directives may be used to print out some or all of a delta.

   % [+] [pad] [width] Dt
   % [+] [pad] [width] DXY

The first directive will print out the entire delta.

The second will print out the delta from the X to Y fields inclusive
(where X and Y are each one of (y,M,w,d,h,m,s) and X must come before
Y in the sequence).

'pad' is optional and can be either '<' or '>' meaning to pad on the
left or right with spaces. It defaults to '<'.

If a '+' is included immediately following the '%', every field will
have a sign attached. Otherwise, only the leftmost field in each set
of fields will include a sign.

    $delta->printf('|%Dt|');
       => |+1:2:+3:+4:5:6:7|

    $delta->printf('|%+Dyd|');
       => |+1:+2:+3:+4|

=back

=head1 KNOWN BUGS

None known.

=head1 BUGS AND QUESTIONS

Please refer to the Date::Manip::Problems documentation for
information on submitting bug reports or questions to the author.

=head1 SEE ALSO

Date::Manip        - main module documentation

=head1 LICENSE

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

=head1 AUTHOR

Sullivan Beck (sbeck@cpan.org)

=cut