Shire(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Shire(3)
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Date::Tolkien::Shire.pm
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This is an object-oriented module to convert dates into
the Shire Calender as presented in the Lord of the Rings
by J. R. R. Tolkien. It includes converting epoch time to
the Shire Calendar (you can also get epoch time back),
comparison operators, and a method to print a formatted
string containing that does something to the effect of on
this date in history -- pulling events from the Lord of
the Rings.
The biggest use I can see in this thing is in a startup
script or possible to keep yourself entertained in an
otherwise boring app that includes a date. If you have
any other ideas/suggestions/uses, etc., please let me
know. I am curious to see how this gets used (if it gets
used that is).
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Tom Braun <
[email protected]>
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February 2001
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Note: I have tried to make these as friendly as possible
when an error occurs. As a consequence, none of them die,
croak, etc. All of these return 0 on error, but as 0 can
be a valid output in a couple cases (the day of the month
for a holiday, for example), the error method should
always be checked to see if an error has occured. As long
as you set a date before you try to use it, you should be
ok.
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$shiredate = Date::Tolkien::Shire->new;
$shiredate = Date::Tolkien::Shire->new(time);
$shiredate = Date::Tolkien::Shire->new($another_shiredate);
The constructor new can take zero or one parameter.
Either a new object can be created without setting a
specific date (the zero parameter version), or an object
can be created and the date set to either a current shire
date, or an epoch time such as is returned by the time
function. For specifics on setting dates, see the
'set_date' function.
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$the_error = $shiredate->error;
$the_error = Date::Tolkien::Shire->error;
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This returns a null string if everything in the previous
method call was as it should be, and a string contain a
description of what happened if an error occurred.
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This method takes either the seconds from the start of the
epoch (like what time returns) or another shire date
object, and sets the date of the object in question equal
to that date. If the object previously contained a date,
it will be overwritten. Locatime, rather than utc, is
used in converting from epoch date.
Please see the note below on calculating the year if your
curious how I arrived by that.
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$epoch_time = $shire_date->time_in_seconds
Returns the epoch time (with 0 for hours, minutes, and
seconds) of a given shire date. This relies on the
library Time::Local, so the caveats and error handling
with that module apply to this method as well.
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$day_of_week = $shiredate->weekday;
This function returns the day of the week using the more
modern names in use during the War of the Ring and given
in the Lord of the Rings Appendix D. If the day in
question is not part of any week (Midyear day and the
Overlithe), then the null string is returned.
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$day_of_week = $shiredate->trad_weekday
This function returns the day of the week using the
archaic forms, the oldest forms found in the Yellowskin of
Tuckborough (also given in Appendix D). If the day in
question is not part of any week (Midyear day and the
Overlithe), then the null string is returned.
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$month = $shiredate->month;
Returns the month of the date in question, or the null
string if the day is a holiday, since holidays are not
part of any month.
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$day_of_month = $self->{monthday};
returns the day of the month of the day in question, or 0
in the case of a holiday, since they are not part of any
month
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$holiday = $shiredate->holiday;
If the day in question is a holiday, returns a string
which holiday it is: "Yule 1", "Yule 2" (first day of the
new year), "Lithe 1", "Midyear's day", "Overlithe", or
"Lithe 2". If the day is not a holiday, the null string
is returned
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$shire_year = $shiredate->year;
Returns the year of the shire date in question. See the
note on year calculaton below if you want to see how I
figured this.
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The following comparison operators are available:
$shiredate1 < $shiredate2
$shiredate1 lt $shiredate2
$shiredate1 <= $shiredate2
$shiredate1 le $shiredate2
$shiredate1 > $shiredate2
$shiredate1 gt $shiredate2
$shiredate1 >= $shiredate2
$shiredate1 ge $shiredate2
$shiredate1 == $shiredate2
$shiredate1 eq $shiredate2
$shiredate1 != $shiredate2
$shiredate1 ne $shiredate2
$shiredate1 <=> $shiredate2
$shiredate1 cmp $shiredate2
You can only compare on shire date to another (no apples
to oranges here). In this context both the numeric and
string operators perform the exact same function. Like
the standard operators, all but <=> and cmp return 1 if
the condition is true and the null string if it is false.
<=> and cmp return -1 if the left operand is less than the
right one, 0 if the two operands are equal, and 1 if the
left operand is greater than the right one.
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$historic_events = $shire_date->on_date
or you may want to try something like my $shiredate =
Date::Tolkien::Shire->new(time); print "Today is " .
$shiredate->on_date . "\n";
This method returns a string containing important events
that happened on this day and month in history, as well as
the day itself. It does not give much more usefullness as
far as using dates go, but it should be fun to run during
a startup script or something. At present the events are
limited to the crucial years at the end of the third age
when the final war of the ring took place and Sauron was
permanently defeated. More dates will be added as I find
them (if I find them maybe I should say). All the ones
below come from Appendix B of the Lord of the Rings. At
this point, these are only available in English.
Note here that the string is formatted. This is to keep
things simple when using it as in the second example
above. Note that in this second example you are actually
ending with a double space, as the first endline is part
of the return value.
If you don't like how this is formatted, complain at me
and if I like you I'll consider changing it :-)
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http://www.glyhweb.com/arda/f/fourthage.html references a
letter sent by Tolkien in 1958 in which he estimates
approxiimately 6000 years have passed since the War of the
Ring and the end of the Third Age. (Thanks to Danny
O'Brien from sending me this link). I took this
approximate as an exact and calculated back 6000 years
from 1958 and set this as the start of the 4th age (1422).
Thus the fourth age begins in our B.C 4042.
There is one issue that I have not finished yet with year
calculation and it may change in the future (and opinions
on it are welcome, as always). According to Appendix D of
the Lord of the Rings, leap years in hobbit calendar are
every 4 years unless its the turn of the century, in which
case it's not a leap year. Our calendar uses every 4
years unless it's 100 years unless its 400 years. So, if
no changes have been made to the hobbit's calendar since
the end of the third age, their calendar would be about 15
days further behind ours now then when the War of the Ring
took place. Implementing this seemed to me to go against
Tolkien's general habit of converting dates in the novel
to our equivalents to give us a better sense of time. My
thoughts, at least right now, is that it is truer to the
spirit of things for March 25 today to be about the same
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as March 25 was back then. So instead, I have modified
Tolkien's description of the hobbit calendar so that leap
years occur once every 4 years unless it's 100 years
unless it's 400 years, so as it matches our calendar in
that regard. These 100 and 400 year intervals occur at
different times in the two calendars, however.
This final fact leads to the one known issue still in this
module. Currently, the logic used here only works for
years between 1937 and 2035 (shire years 7401 to 7499).
This is due to the day offset at different times (in 400
year cycles) between the leap years of the different
calendars. The module still works for other dates and
will provide valid comparisons, but the day it gives will
be slightly off from what is actually the shire date
unless you are between 1937 and 2035 (or 1537 and 1635,
etc). I am planning on fixing this, but that must take a
back seat for the moment to my college classes and more
practical projects.
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Tolkien, J. R. R. <i>Return of the King<i>. New York:
Houghton Mifflin Press, 1955.
http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/f/fourthage.html
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At present, does shire date reckoning is slightly off for
years not between 1937 and 2035 (shire reckoning 7401 to
7499). See year calculation for more information.
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