perl date time quandry - perl

Question

I am trying to use perl date/time and also get file date info.
I started with this routine:
sub getTime {
#arrayDate = localtime(time);
($strSec,$strMin,$strHr,$strDate,$strMo,$strYr,$strDOW,$strDOY,$strDST) = localtime(time);
$strYr += 1900;
$strMo += 1;
if (length($strMo) < 2) { $strMo = "0" . $strMo }
if (length($strDate) < 2) { $strDate = "0" . $strDate }
if (length($strHr) < 2) { $strHr = "0" . $strHr }
if (length($strMin) < 2) { $strMin = "0" . $strMin }
if (length($strSec) < 2) { $strSec = "0" . $strSec }
$strDateTime = "$strYr$strMo$strDate $strHr:$strMin:$strSec";
}
Which worked fine.
Then I needed to get file date info using $file1date = ctime(stat($flatFile1)->mtime);.
Here is where the confusion begins. If I add use File::stat and use Time::localtime to get the file date to work, the first routine stops working and gives me this as output: 1900010 0:0:Time::tm=ARRAY(0x9a7b98)
So in order to get both to work I had to change the date routine to this:
sub getTime {
$strMon = localtime->mon();
$strMday = localtime->mday();
$strYear = localtime->year();
$strHour = localtime->hour();
$strMin = localtime->min();
$strSec = localtime->sec();
$strYear += 1900;
$strMon += 1;
if (length($strMon) < 2) { $strMon = "0" . $strMon }
if (length($strMday) < 2) { $strMday = "0" . $strMday }
if (length($strHour) < 2) { $strHour = "0" . $strHour }
if (length($strMin) < 2) { $strMin = "0" . $strMin }
if (length($strSec) < 2) { $strSec = "0" . $strSec }
$strDateTime = "$strYear$strMon$strMday $strHour:$strMin:$strSec";
}
... which I'm sure is not efficient. What's the right way to do this?

Answer 1

I'd like to advise you to use Time::Piece.
The above core module alters the behavior of localtime to return an object of type Time::Piece that has a strftime function. The following are your two goals performed with this module:
use strict;
use warnings;
use Time::Piece;
use File::stat;
print "Current time: " . localtime->strftime("%Y%m%d %H:%M:%S") . "\n";
print "Script created: " . localtime(stat($0)->ctime)->strftime("%Y%m%d %H:%M:%S") . "\n";
Outputs:
Current time: 20140624 19:18:17
Script created: 20140624 15:54:36

Answer 2

I wouldn't say that there's anything wrong with the second method. My only suggestion would be to use sprintf to format $strDateTime instead of a block of if statements:
sub getTime {
$strDateTime = sprintf("%04d%02d%02d %02d:%02d:%02d",
localtime->year() + 1900,
localtime->mon() + 1,
localtime->mday(),
localtime->hour(),
localtime->min(),
localtime->sec());
}
For reference: the field %04d means a decimal (d) field of length 4, padded with 0. Using fixed-length, padded decimal fields is a quick and easy way to format numbers.
You can see the whole guide on sprintf in the documentation.