Fix all the bad dates in your CPAN changes file and get it right with the formal specification. This code assumes your dates aren't so mangled that they can't be parsed by Time::ParseDate

fixchanges.sh

cp Changes Changesx ; grep -P '^\d' Changes | perl -MTime::ParseDate -nE 'chomp; $_ =~ s/.*?\s//; $orig = $_; $_ = Time::ParseDate::parsedate( $_ ); ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime( $_ ); $mon+=1; $year+=1900; say sprintf "%4d-%02d-%02d | $orig", $year, $mon, $mday;' | while read parseddate; do echo "$parseddate" | perl -MFile::Util -E '$file = shift @ARGV; $ftl = File::Util->new; $content = $ftl->load_file( $file ); undef $/; $swap = <>; chomp $swap; ( $good, $bad ) = split / \| /, $swap; $content =~ s/\Q$bad\E/$good/smg; $ftl->write_file( $file => $content )' Changesx; echo "$parseddate"; done

# the fixed file is in "Changesx"

Yes yes I know the loop should have been in the Perl code. Blech.