NAME
    "Date::MSAccess" - Manage dates in MS Access format

Synopsis
            use Date::MSAccess;

            my($obj)  = Date::MSAccess -> new();
            my($date) = $obj -> decode_date(37988); # Returns '20040101'.
            my($now)  = $obj -> todays_date();      # Returns 38006 on 20-Jan-2004.

Description
    "Date::MSAccess" is a pure Perl module.

    It can convert a number which is an MS Access date into a string of the
    form 'YYYYMMDD'.

    Also, it can return today's date in MS Access format.

    Note: MS Access dates are based on 12 noon.

    Note: MS Access dates can be fractional, eg 3008.25, but this module
    currently ignores such fractions.

Distributions
    This module is available both as a Unix-style distro (*.tgz) and an
    ActiveState-style distro (*.ppd). The latter is shipped in a *.zip file.

    See http://savage.net.au/Perl-modules.html for details.

    See http://savage.net.au/Perl-modules/html/installing-a-module.html for
    help on unpacking and installing each type of distro.

Constructor and initialization
    new(...) returns a "Date::MSAccess" object.

    This is the class's contructor.

    Usage: Date::MSAccess -> new().

    This option does not take any values.

Method: decode_date(<A number corresponding to an MS Access date>)
    Either returns a string of the form 'YYYYMMDD', or the string
    '00000000'.

    The latter was chosen to be compatible with MySQL and Postgres
    'timestamp' fields.

    eg: decode_date(37988) returns '20040101'.

Method: todays_date()
    Returns a number corresponding to today's date in MS Access format.

    Eg: On 20-Jan-2004 the number returned was 38006.

Required Modules
    Date::Calc.

Changes
    See Changes.txt.

Reference
    http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/archive/en-us/dnaracc
    gen/html/msdn_datetime.asp

Author
    "Date::MSAccess" was written by Ron Savage *<ron@savage.net.au>* in
    2004.

    Home page: http://savage.net.au/index.html

Copyright
    Australian copyright (c) 2004, Ron Savage. All rights reserved.

            All Programs of mine are 'OSI Certified Open Source Software';
            you can redistribute them and/or modify them under the terms of
            The Artistic License, a copy of which is available at:
            http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.html