Perl time parsing and difference calculations for "plus days:hours:minutes"

Question

I have a string with a time difference like: ``` 12:03:22 <- where ^ ^ ^ | | +minutes | +hours +days ``` Mandatory is only the minutes, hours and days can be omitted, but here can be e.g. 120:30, so 120 hours and 30 minutes. Need calculate the date and time for NOW + difference, so for example: ``` when now is "May 20, 13:50" and the string is "1:1:5" want get as result: "2012 05 21 14 55" (May 21, 14:55) ``` I know DateTime, but what is the easy way parsing the input string? I'm sure than here is a better way as: ``` use _usual_things_; my .... if($str =~ m/(.*):(.*):(.*)/) { $d = $1; $h = $2; $m = $3; } elsif( $str =~ m/(.*):(.*)/ ) { $h = $1; $m = $2; } elsif ($str =~ m/\d+/ ) { $m = $1; } else { say "error"; } ``` And how to add to the currect date the parsed days, hours, minutes?

Accepted Answer

What about using `reverse` to avoid checking the format?

```
my ($m, $h, $d) = reverse split /:/, $str;
```

To add this to current date, just use DateTime:

```
print DateTime->now->add(days    => $d // 0,
                         hours   => $h // 0,
                         minutes => $m);
```

Perl time parsing and difference calculations for "plus days:hours:minutes"

Solution

Problem