                     ====================================
                       Package "Date::Calc" Version 5.4
                     ====================================


                  Copyright (c) 1995 - 2004 by Steffen Beyer.
                             All rights reserved.


Contents:
---------

    +   Prerequisites
    +   Preliminary steps for use with Perl prior to version 5.002
    +   Preliminary steps for use with ActiveState's port of Perl 5
    +   How to install additional languages
    +   Installation


Prerequisites:
--------------

Perl version 5.000 or higher, and an ANSI C compiler. (!)
                                     ^^^^^^
Module "Carp::Clan" version 5.0 or higher.

If you plan to use the modules "Date::Calendar" or
"Date::Calendar::Year" from this package, you will
also need the module "Bit::Vector" version 6.4 or
newer (which also needs an ANSI C compiler!).

Otherwise you may safely ignore the warning message
"Warning: prerequisite Bit::Vector 6.4 not found at ..."
when running "perl Makefile.PL".

Anyway, you can always install "Bit::Vector" later
at any time if you change your mind.

Note that in order to compile Perl modules which contain
C (and/or XS) code (such as this one), you always HAVE
to use the very same compiler your Perl itself was compiled
with.

Many vendors nowadays ship their operating system already
comprising a precompiled version of Perl. Many times the
compilers used to compile this version of Perl are not
available to or not usually used by the users of these
operating systems.

In such cases building this module (or any other Perl
module containing C and/or XS code) will not work. You
will either have to get the compiler which was used to
compile Perl itself (see for example the section "Compiler:"
in the output of the command "perl -V"), or to build
your own Perl with the compiler of your choice (which
also allows you to take advantage of the various compile-
time switches Perl offers).

Note that Sun Solaris and Red Hat Linux frequently were
reported to suffer from this kind of problem.

Moreover, you usually cannot build any modules under
Windows 95/98 since the Win 95/98 command shell doesn't
support the "&&" operator. You will need the Windows NT
command shell ("cmd.exe") or the "4DOS" shell to be
installed on your Windows 95/98 system first. Note that
Windows NT and Windows 2000 are not affected and just
work fine. I don't know about Windows XP, however.

Note that ActiveState provides precompiled binaries of
this module for their Win32 port of Perl ("ActivePerl")
on their web site, which you should be able to install
simply by typing "ppm install Date-Calc" in your MS-DOS
command shell (but note the "-" instead of "::" in the
package name!). This also works under Windows 95/98 (!).

If your firewall prevents "ppm" from downloading
this package, you can also download it manually from
http://www.activestate.com/ppmpackages/5.005/zips/ or
http://www.activestate.com/ppmpackages/5.6/zips/.
Follow the installation instructions included in
the "zip" archive.

Note also that a "plain Perl" version of "Date::Calc" called
"Date::Pcalc" exists (written by J. David Eisenberg); you
should be able to download it from the same place where
you found this package, or from David's web site at
http://catcode.com/date/pcalc.html.


Preliminary steps for use with Perl prior to version 5.002:
-----------------------------------------------------------

Edit the file "Makefile.PL" and change the line

    'VERSION_FROM'      => 'Calc.pm',
to
    'VERSION'           => '5.4',

Then edit the file "Calc.pm" and change the line

    bootstrap Date::Calc $VERSION;
to
    bootstrap Date::Calc;

Also edit the file "t/f000.t" and change all lines of the kind

    use Date::Calc 5.4;

into just

    use Date::Calc;

Finally, edit the file "Calc.xs" and delete the line

    PROTOTYPES: DISABLE


Preliminary steps for use with ActiveState's port of Perl 5:
------------------------------------------------------------

(For the Win32 platform)

Edit the file "Makefile.PL" and remove all of the "#" characters
which currently comment out the lines involved with the setting
of the attributes "ABSTRACT", "AUTHOR" and "CAPI".


How to install additional languages:
------------------------------------

Unfortunately, UNIX and Windows NT/95 lack a "Resource Fork" concept
as provided by the MacOS (Apple Macintosh Operating System).

Therefore you will have to re-compile this package whenever you
make any changes to existing resources (see the section "RESOURCES"
in the file "DateCalc.c" in this distribution) or if you add more
languages.

Fortunately, though, adding a new language is quite simple:

Edit the file "DateCalc.c", locate the "RESOURCES" section,
and do the following:

1) Increment the number in the line

    #define DateCalc_LANGUAGES 14

   as necessary.

2) Add a new entry to the bottom of the array "DateCalc_Month_to_Text_"
   of the following form:

    {
        "???", "January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June",
        "July", "August", "September", "October", "November", "December"
    }

   Don't forget to add a comma after the closing brace of the immediately
   preceding entry above.

3) Add a new entry to the bottom of the array "DateCalc_Day_of_Week_to_Text_"
   of the following form:

    {
        "???", "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday",
        "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday", "Sunday"
    }

   Don't forget to add a comma after the closing brace of the immediately
   preceding entry above.

4) Add a new entry to the bottom of the array
   "DateCalc_Day_of_Week_Abbreviation_" of the following form:

    {
        "", "", "", "", "", "", "", ""    /* 14 */
    }

   Don't forget to add a comma after the closing brace of the immediately
   preceding entry above.

   Fill this entry with values *ONLY* if you need special abbreviations
   for the names of the days of week (i.e., if you need abbreviations
   other than the first three letters of the entries in the array
   "DateCalc_Day_of_Week_to_Text_" immediately above)!

   If you do so, remember to fill the first (dummy) field in this entry
   with some non-empty string (such as "???", for example), since this
   field is used to flag the existence of special abbreviations in this
   package.

5) Add a new entry to the bottom of the array "DateCalc_Date_Long_Format_"
   of the following form:

    "%s, %d %s %d"                      /* 14  Language    */

   Don't forget to add a comma after the closing double quote of
   the immediately preceding entry above.

   You may change this format to suit your preferences, but the number,
   type and order of variables is fixed (day of week, day, month, year).

   In case you want to use a different scheme, you will have to
   add a new "case" to the "switch()" statement in the function
   "DateCalc_Date_to_Text_Long()" in "DateCalc.c" and provide
   the "sprintf()" statement with the necessary arguments yourself.

6) Finally, append the name of the language you have just added
   *WRITTEN IN THIS VERY LANGUAGE*, to the end of the array
   "DateCalc_Language_to_Text_". (And don't forget the comma...)

   The name of the language should be written in that very language
   itself because the name for any given language usually varies
   considerably from language to language. The only way to uniquely
   identify any language is to use the way it is written by native
   writers of that language itself.

   The abbreviations for names of languages as defined by ISO 639 cannot
   take account of all languages (there are only 26 * 26 = 676 possible
   abbreviations as designated by this standard, as opposed to the many
   thousand different languages in this world), which is the reason why
   they are not used here.

7) Now edit the file "DateCalc.h" and set the number in the line

    #define DateCalc_LANGUAGES 14

   to the same value as in the file "DateCalc.c".

   You may (at your option) want to apply the other changes to "DateCalc.c"
   to the file "DateCalc.h" as well. This has no effect on the result of
   the compilation, though, and serves only to document what changes you
   have made.

8) If you have never built this version of this package on the current
   machine before, just proceed with the instructions in the section
   "Installation" following immediately below.

   Otherwise, rebuild the package with "make" (as described in the
   section below) and re-install it with "make install".

   If you want to start over from scratch instead, enter the command
   "make realclean" and proceed as described in the section below,
   from the beginning.

9) Some additional recommendations:

   a) If you want to send me your new language entry so that I can
      add it to the next release of this module, please either:

        -  send me a context "diff" for DateCalc.c (and optionally,
           for DateCalc.h as well) which can be used by the "patch"
           program to automatically update my corresponding file(s)

           (The disadvantage of this is that frequently several
           patches reach me at about the same time, so only one
           of them will work, since the context will have changed
           for the others after applying the first - and "plain"
           diffs will not work for similar reasons)

        -  send me just the (plain text) list of day and month names,
           the new format string, the name of the language, and, if
           necessary, the list of month name abbreviations and the code
           you added to the function "DateCalc_Date_to_Text_Long()"

      You don't need to bother sending me the changes in the documentation
      or other files, and just sending me the list of items usually causes
      me less work than sending in a patch, so I'd prefer the latter.

   b) Please use only the ISO-Latin-1 character set if possible,
      since my module doesn't support any other character sets yet,
      or at least tell me which character set you used so I can
      document this in the module's manual.


Installation:
-------------

=============================================================================
ALWAYS unpack and build Perl modules OUTSIDE the Perl source and installation
tree! (You might otherwise inadvertently corrupt your Perl installation!)
=============================================================================

Quick installation guide for experienced users:
-----------------------------------------------

    UNIX:                 Win32/Borland C++:      Win32/MS Visual C++:
    =====                 ==================      ====================

    % perl Makefile.PL    % perl Makefile.PL      % perl Makefile.PL
    % make                % dmake                 % nmake
    % make test           % dmake test            % nmake test
    % make install        % dmake install         % nmake install

Detailed installation guide:
----------------------------

 1) Change directory to the directory that has been created by unpacking this
    package ("cd Date-Calc-5.4").

 2) Type "perl Makefile.PL" (or whatever the name and path of your Perl 5
    binary is).

    This will create a "Makefile" with the appropriate parameters for your
    system (for instance, where the install directories are, and so on).

    See "man ExtUtils::MakeMaker" or "perldoc ExtUtils::MakeMaker" for
    other useful options to this command, like setting a different
    installation PREFIX.

 3) Type "make".

    (For installation under Windows NT/95, use "dmake" (Borland C++) or
    "nmake" (MS Visual C++) instead!)

    This will create a dynamically linkable library file that will be linked
    to Perl later, at runtime, provided your system supports dynamic linking.

    Please refer to the MakeMaker documentation for instructions on how
    to build a new Perl with statically linked libraries (invoke "perldoc
    ExtUtils::MakeMaker" for this), if your system does NOT support dynamic
    linking!

    Should you encounter any compiler warnings or errors (like the redefi-
    nition of certain types already defined by your system), please contact
    me via e-mail at <sb@engelschall.com>, sending me your compiler output
    (both STDOUT and STDERR). Thank you!

    ======================================================================
       BEWARE that you need an ANSI C compiler in order to successfully
       compile this package!
    ======================================================================

    Also note that problems may arise with the c89 compiler of HP, although
    it allegedly supports ANSI C!

    I recommend the GNU C compiler ("gcc"), which is freely available on
    the Internet (see ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ and mirror sites thereof).

    (HP users are strongly recommended to install the GNU assembler "gas"
    first before installing the GNU C compiler "gcc", according to GNU.)

    Should you get the error messages

    Calc.c: 15: Unable to find include file 'EXTERN.h'.
    Calc.c: 16: Unable to find include file 'perl.h'.
    Calc.c: 17: Unable to find include file 'XSUB.h'.

    then edit the file "Makefile.PL" and add a line similar to the
    following so that it points to your Perl 5 distribution tree:

    'INC'       => '-I/usr/ctr/dlt/private/perl/perl5.003',

    Then start over with the generation of the "Makefile" at 2).

 4) Now issue "make test" (or "dmake test" or "nmake test", respectively).

    The output should look somewhat like this:

    PERL_DL_NONLAZY=1 /sw/bin/perl
    -Iblib/arch -Iblib/lib
    -I/sw/pkg/perl/lib/5.00503/i386-freebsd
    -I/sw/pkg/perl/lib/5.00503
    -e 'use Test::Harness qw(&runtests $verbose);
    $verbose=0; runtests @ARGV;' t/*.t
    t/f000..............ok
    t/f001..............ok
    t/f002..............ok
    t/f003..............ok
    t/f004..............ok
    t/f005..............ok
    t/f006..............ok
    t/f007..............ok
    t/f008..............ok
    t/f009..............ok
    t/f010..............ok
    t/f011..............ok
    t/f012..............ok
    t/f013..............ok
    t/f014..............ok
    t/f015..............ok
    t/f016..............ok
    t/f017..............ok
    t/f018..............ok
    t/f019..............ok
    t/f020..............ok
    t/f021..............ok
    t/f022..............ok
    t/f023..............ok
    t/f024..............ok
    t/f025..............ok
    t/f026..............ok
    t/f027..............ok
    t/f028..............ok
    t/f029..............ok
    t/f030..............ok
    t/f031..............ok
    t/f032..............ok
    t/f033..............ok
    t/f034..............ok
    t/f035..............ok
    t/f036..............ok
    t/m001..............ok
    t/m002..............ok
    t/m003..............ok
    t/m004..............ok
    t/m005..............ok
    t/m006..............ok
    t/m007..............ok
    t/m008..............ok
    t/m009..............ok
    t/m010..............ok
    t/m011..............ok
    All tests successful.
    Files=48,  Tests=2770, 30 wallclock secs
    (26.29 cusr +  1.41 csys = 27.70 CPU)

 5) At last, type "make install" (or "dmake install", "nmake install").

 6) Now you can run the example applications from the "examples"
    subdirectory in this distribution.

    Please refer to the file "EXAMPLES.txt" in this distribution for
    more details!

 7) Share and enjoy!


