Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!rahardj
From: rahardj@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Budi Rahardjo)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: date-pattern-matching question
Keywords: date, pattern matching
Message-ID: <1991May27.165523.2644@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Date: 27 May 91 16:55:23 GMT
Sender: rahardj@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Budi Rahardjo)
Followup-To: comp.lang.perl
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Lines: 35

I need advice to perform date pattern matching.
Suppose I have the following text file :
----- text.file ----
# userid|name|creator|creation date|expiry date|deletion date
#
user01|name1|me|date11|date12|date13
user02|joe bloe|someone else|date21|date22|date23
user03|...
... etc.
----- end of text.file ----

I'd like to perform the following queries :
- get userid that was created before certain date (or month, or year)
- get userid that was supposed to be terminated but not deleted 
- get userid that has name=x and created before datex
- .. etc.
ie date-comparison operations

1. How would you store the date ? Which format ?
   dd-mm-yy
   dd/mm/yy
   or integer number (ie # of days since 1980)
   or even May 27 11:49:31 CDT 1991

2. How would you do the actual pattern matching ?
   Example needed ...
   (BTW, the actual database has 50 fields and stored as dbm file).


Thanks,
budi

--
``A system without PERL is like a hockey game without a fight.''
                                -- Mitch Wright