A.1 Answers for Chapter 2 | Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules

Here's one way to do it. First, start with the package directive and use strict :

 package Oogaboogoo::date; use strict;

Then define the constant arrays to hold the mappings for day-of-week and month names :

 my @day = qw(ark dip wap sen pop sep kir); my @mon = qw(diz pod bod rod sip wax lin sen kun fiz nap dep);

Next, define the subroutine for day-of-week-number to name . Note that this subroutine will be accessible as Ooogaboogoo::date::day :

 sub day {   my $num = shift @_;   die "$num is not a valid day number"     unless $num >= 0 and $num <= 6;   $day[$num]; }

Similarly, you have the subroutine for the month-of-year-number to name:

 sub mon {   my $num = shift @_;   die "$num is not a valid month number"     unless $num >= 0 and $num <= 11;   $mon[$num]; }

Finally, the mandatory true value at the end of the package:

1;

Name this file date.pl within a directory of Oogaboogoo in one of the directories given in your @INC variable, such as the current directory.

Here's one way to do it. Pull in the .pl file from a place in your @INC path :

 use strict; require 'Oogaboogoo/date.pl';

Then get the information for the current time:

 my($sec, $min, $hour, $mday, $mon, $year, $wday) = localtime;

Then use the newly defined subroutines for the conversions:

 my $day_name = Oogaboogoo::date::day($wday); my $mon_name = Oogaboogoo::date::mon($mon);

The year number is offset by 1900 for historical purposes, so you need to fix that:

 $year += 1900;

Finally, it's time for the output:

 print "Today is $day_name, $mon_name $mday, $year.\n";