DBIx::Class::InflateColumn::DateTime - Auto-create DateTime objects from date and datetime columns.

Load this component and then declare one or more columns to be of the datetime, timestamp or date datatype.

  package Event;
  __PACKAGE__->load_components(qw/InflateColumn::DateTime Core/);
  __PACKAGE__->add_columns(
    starts_when => { data_type => 'datetime' }
    create_date => { data_type => 'date' }
  );

NOTE: You must load InflateColumn::DateTime before Core. See DBIx::Class::Manual::Component for details.

Then you can treat the specified column as a DateTime object.

  print "This event starts the month of ".
    $event->starts_when->month_name();

If you want to set a specific timezone and locale for that field, use:

  __PACKAGE__->add_columns(
    starts_when => { data_type => 'datetime', timezone => "America/Chicago", locale => "de_DE" }
  );

If you want to inflate no matter what data_type your column is, use inflate_datetime or inflate_date:

  __PACKAGE__->add_columns(
    starts_when => { data_type => 'varchar', inflate_datetime => 1 }
  );

  __PACKAGE__->add_columns(
    starts_when => { data_type => 'varchar', inflate_date => 1 }
  );

It's also possible to explicitly skip inflation:

  __PACKAGE__->add_columns(
    starts_when => { data_type => 'datetime', inflate_datetime => 0 }
  );

NOTE: Don't rely on InflateColumn::DateTime to parse date strings for you. The column is set directly for any non-references and InflateColumn::DateTime is completely bypassed. Instead, use an input parser to create a DateTime object. For instance, if your user input comes as a 'YYYY-MM-DD' string, you can use DateTime::Format::ISO8601 thusly:

  use DateTime::Format::ISO8601;
  my $dt = DateTime::Format::ISO8601->parse_datetime('YYYY-MM-DD');

This module figures out the type of DateTime::Format::* class to inflate/deflate with based on the type of DBIx::Class::Storage::DBI::* that you are using. If you switch from one database to a different one your code should continue to work without modification (though note that this feature is new as of 0.07, so it may not be perfect yet - bug reports to the list very much welcome).

If the data_type of a field is date, datetime or timestamp (or a derivative of these datatypes, e.g. timestamp with timezone), this module will automatically call the appropriate parse/format method for deflation/inflation as defined in the storage class. For instance, for a datetime field the methods parse_datetime and format_datetime would be called on deflation/inflation. If the storage class does not provide a specialized inflator/deflator, [parse|format]_datetime will be used as a fallback. See DateTime::Format for more information on date formatting.

For more help with using components, see USING in DBIx::Class::Manual::Component.

Chains with the register_column in DBIx::Class::Row method, and sets up datetime columns appropriately. This would not normally be directly called by end users.

In the case of an invalid date, DateTime will throw an exception. To bypass these exceptions and just have the inflation return undef, use the datetime_undef_if_invalid option in the column info:

    "broken_date",
    {
        data_type => "datetime",
        default_value => '0000-00-00',
        is_nullable => 1,
        datetime_undef_if_invalid => 1
    }

If you have a datetime column with an associated timezone, and subsequently create/update this column with a DateTime object in the DateTime::TimeZone::Floating timezone, you will get a warning (as there is a very good chance this will not have the result you expect). For example:

  __PACKAGE__->add_columns(
    starts_when => { data_type => 'datetime', timezone => "America/Chicago" }
  );

  my $event = $schema->resultset('EventTZ')->create({
    starts_at => DateTime->new(year=>2007, month=>12, day=>31, ),
  });

The warning can be avoided in several ways:

Fix your broken code

When calling set_time_zone on a Floating DateTime object, the timezone is simply set to the requested value, and no time conversion takes place. It is always a good idea to be supply explicit times to the database:

  my $event = $schema->resultset('EventTZ')->create({
    starts_at => DateTime->new(year=>2007, month=>12, day=>31, time_zone => "America/Chicago" ),
  });

Suppress the check on per-column basis

  __PACKAGE__->add_columns(
    starts_when => { data_type => 'datetime', timezone => "America/Chicago", floating_tz_ok => 1 }
  );

Suppress the check globally

Set the environment variable DBIC_FLOATING_TZ_OK to some true value.

Putting extra attributes like timezone, locale or floating_tz_ok into extra => {} has been DEPRECATED because this gets you into trouble using DBIx::Class::Schema::Versioned. Instead put it directly into the columns definition like in the examples above. If you still use the old way you'll see a warning - please fix your code then!

More information about the add_columns method, and column metadata, can be found in the documentation for DBIx::Class::ResultSource.

Further discussion of problems inherent to the Floating timezone:Floating DateTimes and $dt->set_time_zone

Matt S. Trout <mst@shadowcatsystems.co.uk>

Aran Deltac <bluefeet@cpan.org>

You may distribute this code under the same terms as Perl itself.