my $date; dateconverter($date_begin); print $date, "\n"; sub dateconverter { my $year, my $month, my $day, my $hour, my $min, my $sec; ($year, $month, $day) = split /-/, $_; ($day, $hour) = split / /, $day; ($hour, $min, $sec) = split /:/, $hour; main::date = "$year.$month.$day"; # get unix seconds for $date return main::date; }