=over =item localtime EXPR X X =item localtime Converts a time as returned by the time function to a 9-element list with the time analyzed for the local time zone. If EXPR is omitted, C uses the current time (as returned by L|/time>). Typically used as follows: # 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime(time); All list elements are numeric and come straight out of the C C. C, C, and C are the seconds, minutes, and hours of the specified time. C is the day of the month in the range C (i.e. 1-based). C is the month in the range C (i.e. 0-based), with 0 indicating January and 11 indicating December. This makes it easy to get a month name from a list: my @abbr = qw(Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec); print "$abbr[$mon] $mday"; # $mon=9, $mday=18 gives "Oct 18" C contains the number of years since 1900 (e.g. C for 2029). C is the day of the week, with 0 indicating Sunday and 3 indicating Wednesday. C is the day of the year, in the range C (or C in leap years.) C is true if the specified time occurs when Daylight Saving Time is in effect, false otherwise. To get a human-readable date/time string, use L>: use POSIX qw(strftime); my @now = localtime; my $now_string = strftime "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", @now; # e.g. "2025-11-29 15:19:02" To get just the year, you can use either L>: use POSIX qw(strftime); # full year: my $year = strftime "%Y", localtime; # just the last two digits of the year: my $ar = strftime "%y", localtime; ... or manual arithmetic: my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime; # full year: $year += 1900; # just the last two digits of the year: my $ar = sprintf("%02d", $year % 100); In scalar context, C returns the L value: my $now_string = localtime; # e.g., "Thu Oct 13 04:54:34 1994" This scalar value is always in English, and is B locale-dependent. To get similar but locale-dependent date strings, try for example: use POSIX qw(strftime); my $now_string = strftime "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Y", localtime; # or for GMT formatted appropriately for your locale: my $now_string = strftime "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Y", gmtime; C will be formatted according to the current LC_TIME locale the program or thread is running in. See L for how to set up and change that locale. Note that C and C, the short forms of the day of the week and the month of the year, may not necessarily be three characters wide. The L<:gmtime> and L<:localtime> modules provide a convenient, by-name access mechanism to the L|/gmtime EXPR> and C functions, respectively. For a comprehensive date and time representation look at the L module on CPAN. For GMT instead of local time use the L|/gmtime EXPR> builtin. See also the L|Time::Local> module (for converting seconds, minutes, hours, and such back to the integer value returned by L|/time>), and the L module's L|POSIX/C> function. Portability issues: L. =back