README for the Perl Module Time::Period


Copyright (c) 1997 Patrick Ryan.  All rights reserved.

This Perl module uses the conditions given by Perl.  This module may only
be distributed and or modified under the conditions given by Perl.


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Document Contents
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  - Document Contents
  - Overview
  - Getting the Distribution
  - Verification of the Module
  - Installation of the Module
  - Using the Module
  - Contacting the Author
  - Removing the Module


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Overview
--------

Period.pm is a Perl module that contains code to deal with time periods.
Currently, there is only a function in this module.  That function is
called inPeriod().

inPeriod() determines if a given time is within a given time period.
It will return 1 if it is, 0 if not, and -1 if either the time or the
period passed to it were malformed.  The time is specified in non-leap
year seconds past January 1, 1970, as per the time() function.  The period
is a string which is of the form described in Period's man page.


------------------------
Getting the Distribution
------------------------

This distribution can be retrieved at
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/8456/ or from CPAN at
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/modules/by-module/Time/.


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Verification of the Module
--------------------------

The module has been signed by the author with the PGP key "Patrick Ryan
<pryan@sleepy>".  The PGP key can be retrieved from
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/8456/ or by emailing
pgryan@geocities.com.

The signature for the module Period.pm is stored in Period.pm.sig.  The
signature itself has been time stamped.  The time stamp is stored in
Period.pm.sig.stamp.  Verification of the time stamp will require the
PGP keys for the service, which can be found at
http://www.itconsult.co.uk/stamper.htm.

Follow these instructions to verify the time stamped signature.

1) Retrieve the PGP keys from the stamping service.
2) Verify the file Period.pm.sig.stamp with the keys from the stamping
   service, but use the -o switch to specify the output file name of
   Period.pm.pgp.
3) Retrieve my PGP key, Patrick Ryan <pryan@sleepy>.
4) Verify Period.pm with Period.pm.pgp.

The process of verifying the time stamp also verifies Period.pm.  There
is no need to verify Period.pm with Period.pm.sig if the time stamp
has been verified using the procedure defined above.


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Installation of the Module
--------------------------

Make sure the user executing this has sufficient permissions to add and
modify files in the global perl installation.  The user should use this
sequence to install this module.

  perl Makefile.PL
  make
  make install
  make realclean


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Using the Module
----------------

The module is simple to use.  It is fully documented with pod
documentation.  To read it, execute

  perldoc Time::Period

after the module is installed.

A HTML version of the pod documentation is included in the distribution.
It was created with pod2html, which comes with Perl.


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Contacting the Author
---------------------

I welcome any feedback on this module.  If you have comments, questions,
or ideas, feel free to send them to me, Patrick Ryan, pgryan@geocities.com.


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Removing the Module
-------------------

Under a user with sufficient permissions and from the Period distribution 
directory, execute

  perl Makefile.PL

if there isn't a file called Makefile.  Then execute

  make uninstall