---
name: "Email::Date"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "libemail-date-perl"
version: "1.104-4"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/Email::Date"
---

# Email::Date(3pm)

Find and Format Date Headers

## NAME

Email::Date - Find and Format Date Headers

## VERSION

version 1.104

## SYNOPSIS

```
  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 => '...',
  );
```

## DESCRIPTION

**Achtung!**  Probably you'll be find just using Email::Date::Format to produce dates or Date::Parse to parse dates.  This module isn't much needed anymore, but does provide `"find_date"`, described below.

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

### find\_date

```
  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.

### format\_date

```
  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.

### format\_gmdate

```
  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.

## AUTHORS

- •

  Casey West

- •

  Ricardo SIGNES \<rjbs@cpan.org\>

## COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2004 by Casey West.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.