How to make regional date formats using Excel::Writer::XLSX - perl

Question

I use the Excel::Writer::XLSX module to generate excel report, but the date format does not change according to different regions.
For example, if I set the region to 'English-United States', the date format should be 'mm/dd/yyyy' shown on excel sheet, if I reset the region to 'French-France', the date format should be 'dd/mm/yyyy'.
So I'd like to know how it is implemented using Excel::Writer::XLSX. Thanks.

Answer 1

Excel stores a limited number of date formats with regional settings. For example in the number format dialog in Excel you will see a warning like this:
Displays date and time serial numbers as date values, according to the type and locale (location) that you specify. Date formats that begin with an asterisk (*) respond to changes in regional date and time settings that are specified in Control Panel. Formats without an asterisk are not affected by Control Panel settings.
In Excel::Writer::XLSX you can set these using a num_format id number instead of a format string. For example:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Excel::Writer::XLSX;
my $workbook = Excel::Writer::XLSX->new( 'dates.xlsx' );
my $worksheet = $workbook->add_worksheet( 'Demo' );
$worksheet->set_column('A:A', 20);
# Regional date format.
my $date_format_1 = $workbook->add_format( num_format => 14 );
# Non-regional date format.
my $date_format_2 = $workbook->add_format( num_format => 'dd/mm/yy' );
$worksheet->write_date_time( 'A1', '2013-10-27T', $date_format_1 );
$worksheet->write_date_time( 'A2', '2013-10-27T', $date_format_2 );
__END__
See the num_format section of the docs for more examples of the builtin format ids.