Date::Manip::Holidays(User Contributed Perl DocumentatDate::Manip::Holidays(3)NAMEDate::Manip::Holidays - describes holidays and events
SYNOPSIS
This describes the Holidays and Events sections of the config file, and
how they are used.
Holidays and events are specific days that are named. Holidays are used
in business mode calculations, events are not. Events may be used for
other calendaring operations.
HOLIDAYS
The holiday section of the config file is used to define holidays.
Each line is of the form:
STRING = HOLIDAY
HOLIDAY is the name of the holiday (or it can be blank in which case
the day will still be treated as a holiday... for example the day after
Thanksgiving is often a work holiday though it is not named).
STRING is a string which can be parsed to give a valid date. It can be
any of the following forms:
A full date
Specific holidays can be set which occur only a single time.
May 5, 2000 = A one-time-only holiday
Any format parseable by Date::Manip::Date::parse_date can be used.
A date without a year
Some holidays occur every year on the same day. These can be
defined using the simple lines:
Jan 1 = New Year's Day
Jul 4th = Independence Day
fourth Thu in Nov = Thanksgiving
These dates must be written in a form which can be parsed as a full
date by simply adding the year to the end of the string. Please
refer to the Date::Manip::Date documentation to see what forms will
work. ISO 8601 dates will not work since the year comes first.
Any format parseable by Date::Manip::Date::parse_date can be used.
Recurrence
The dates can be specified using recurrences:
1*0:0:0:0:0:0*EASTER = Easter
1*11:0:11:0:0:0*DWD = Veteran's Day
In cases where you are interested in business type calculations,
you'll want to define most holidays using recurrences, since they
can define when a holiday is celebrated in the financial world.
For example, Christmas might be defined as:
Dec 25 = Christmas
but if it falls on a weekend, there won't be a business holiday
associated with it. It could be defined using a recurrence:
1*12:0:24:0:0:0*DWD = Christmas
so that if Christmas falls on a weekend, a holiday will be taken on
the Friday before or the Monday after the weekend.
You can use the fully specified format of a recurrence:
1*2:0:1:0:0:0***Jan 1 1999*Dec 31 2002 = Feb 2 from 1999-2002
OTHER HOLIDAY CONSIDERATIONS
Recurrences which change years
It is now valid to have a recurrence defined for New Year's day
which pushes the holiday to the previous year.
For example, the most useful definition of New Year's day is:
1*1:0:1:0:0:0*DWD = New Year's Day
which means to choose the closest working day to observe the
holiday, even though this might mean that the holiday is observed
on the previous year.
Order of definitions is preserved
The order of the definitions is preserved. In other words, when
looking at the holidays for a year, previously defined holidays (in
the order given in the config file) are correctly handled.
As an example, if you wanted to define both Christmas and Boxing
days (Boxing is the day after Christmas, and is celebrated in some
parts of the world), and you wanted to celebrate Christmas on a
business day on or after Dec 25, and Boxing day as the following
work day, you could do it in one of the following ways:
1*12:0:25:0:0:0*NWD = Christmas
1*12:0:26:0:0:0*NWD = Boxing
or
1*12:0:25:0:0:0*NWD = Christmas
1*12:0:25:0:0:0*NWD = Boxing
Holidays go into affect the minute they are parsed which is why the
second example works (though for clarity, the first one is
preferable). The first recurrence defined the first business day
on or after Dec 25 as Christmas. The second one then defines the
business day after that as Boxing day. Since the definitions are
stored as a list (NOT a hash as they were in Date::Manip 5.xx),
using the same recurrence twice does not cause a problem.
Multiple holidays
Having multiple holidays on a single day is allowed. As an example,
you may want to look at New Years day as both the observed and
actual holidays, so you might have:
1*1:0:1:0:0:0*DWD = New Year's Day (observed)
Jan 1 = New Year's Day
Most of the time, both will fall on the same day, but sometimes
they may differ. In this example, it is important that the
observed holiday be listed first. Otherwise, Jan 1 will be marked
as a holiday and then the observed date will check Jan 1, but where
it is not a business day, it will move to another day (due to the
DWD modifier).
Likewise, the two holidays:
3rd Sunday in June = Father's Day
Jun 17 = Bunker Hill Day
sometimes fall on the same day. Using the
Date::Manip::Date::list_holidays method (or the Date_IsHoliday
function), you can get a list of all names that the date contains.
EVENTS
The Events section of the config file is similar to the Holiday
section. It is used to name certain days or times, but there are a few
important differences:
Events can be assigned to any time and duration
All holidays are exactly 1 day long. They are assigned to a period
of time from midnight to midnight.
Events can be based at any time of the day, and may be of any
duration.
Events don't affect business mode calculations
Unlike holidays, events are completely ignored when doing business
mode calculations.
Whereas holidays were added with business mode math in mind, events
were added with calendar and scheduling applications in mind.
Every line in the events section is of the form:
EVENT = NAME
where NAME is the name of the event, and EVENT defines when it occurs
and its duration. An EVENT can be defined in the following ways:
Date
YMD
YM
Recur
Date ; Date
YMD ; YMD
YM ; YM
Date ; Delta
Recur ; Delta
Date refers to a full date/time (and is any string that can be parsed
by Date::Manip::Date::parse). YMD is any string which can be parsed by
Date::Manip::Date::parse_date. YM is any string which can be parsed by
the parse_date method to give a date in the current year. Recur is a
partial or fully specified recurrence. Delta is any string that can be
parsed to form a delta.
With the "Date" form, or the "Recur" form, the event starts at the time
(or times) specified by the date or recurrence, and last 1 hour long.
With the "YMD" and "YM" forms, the event occurs on the given day, and
lasts all day.
With all of the two part forms ("Date;Date", "YM;YM", etc.), the event
starts at the first date and goes to the second date, or goes an amount
of time specified by the delta.
The "YMD;YMD" and "YM;YM" forms means that the event lasts from the
start of the first date to the end of the second. In the Date;Date
form, the event goes from the first date to the second date inclusive.
In other words, both dates are in the event. In the "Date;Delta" and
"Recur;Delta" forms, the Delta tells the length of the event. Also, in
the Date;Date form, the second date may NOT be expressed as a delta.
Currently, having an event longer than 1 year is NOT supported, but no
checking is done for this.
KNOWN BUGS
None known.
BUGS AND QUESTIONS
Please refer to the Date::Manip::Problems documentation for information
on submitting bug reports or questions to the author.
SEE ALSO
Date::Manip - main module documentation
LICENSE
This script is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
AUTHOR
Sullivan Beck (sbeck@cpan.org)
perl v5.14.4 2013-06-10 Date::Manip::Holidays(3)