NAME DateTimeX::Auto - use DateTime without needing to call constructors SYNOPSIS use DateTimeX::Auto ':auto'; my $ga_start = '2000-04-06'; $ga_start->add(years => 10); printf("%s %s\n", $ga_start, ref $ga_start); # 2010-04-06 DateTime { no DateTimeX::Auto; my $string = '2000-04-06'; printf( "%s\n", ref($string)?'Ref':'NoRef' ); # NoRef } DESCRIPTION DateTime is awesome, but constructing "DateTime" objects can be annoying. You often need to use one of the formatter modules, or call "DateTime->new()" with a bunch of values. If you've got a bunch of constant dates in your code, then "DateTimeX::Auto" makes all this a bit simpler. It uses overload to overload the "q()" operator, automatically turning all string constants that match particular regular expressions into "DateTime" objects. It also overloads stringification to make sure that "DateTime" objects get stringified back to exactly the format they were given in. The date formats supported are: yyyy-mm-dd yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss Fractional seconds are also supported, to an arbitrary number of decimal places. However, as "DateTime" only supports nanosecond precision, any digits after the ninth will be zeroed out. my $dt ='1234-12-12T12:34:56.123456789123456789'; print "$dt\n"; # 1234-12-12T12:34:56.123456789000000000 Objects are blessed into the "DateTimeX::Auto" class which inherits from "DateTime". They use UNIVERSAL::ref to masquerade as plain "DateTime" objects. print ref('2000-01-01')."\n"; # DateTime The "d" and "dt" Functions As an alternative "DateTimeX::Auto" can export a function called "d". This might be useful if you'd prefer not to have every string constant in your code turned into a "DateTime". use DateTimeX::Auto 'd'; my $dt = d('2000-01-01'); If "d" is called with a string that is in an unrecognised format, it croaks. If called with no arguments, returns a "DateTime" representing the current time. An alias "dt" is also available. They're exactly the same. SEE ALSO DateTime, DateTimeX::Easy. AUTHOR Toby Inkster . COPYRIGHT Copyright 2011 Toby Inkster This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.