> I want to extract the timestamp from a MongoDB document's _id field in
> Perl.  I've been trying to create a MongoDB::OID object from the _id string
> returned by a find_one, but it complains about illegal hexadecimal digits.  
> What am I doing wrong?

> my $object = $inventoryColl->find_one();
> my $objID = MongoDB::OID->new(value => $object->{_id});
> my $time = $objID->get_time;   # this line produces an error
> my $date = DateTime->from_epoch(epoch => $objID->get_time);  # also
> produces error

On Saturday, 13 October 2012 07:29:35 UTC+1, Stephen Steneker wrote:

> I want to extract the timestamp from a MongoDB document's _id field in
>> Perl.  I've been trying to create a MongoDB::OID object from the _id string
>> returned by a find_one, but it complains about illegal hexadecimal digits.  
>> What am I doing wrong?

>> my $object = $inventoryColl->find_one();
>> my $objID = MongoDB::OID->new(value => $object->{_id});
>> my $time = $objID->get_time;   # this line produces an error
>> my $date = DateTime->from_epoch(epoch => $objID->get_time);  # also
>> produces error

> Hi,

> Assuming your _id is an ObjectID and not a custom string value, it should
> already returned as a MongoDB::OID.

> So this should work:

> my $object = $inventoryColl->find_one();
> my $objID = $object->{'_id'};
> my $date = DateTime->from_epoch(epoch => $objID->get_time);
> print "date: $date\n";

> If you're not sure what is being returned, Data::Dumper will show you the
> contents of a variable without stringifying:
>   http://search.cpan.org/dist/Data-Dumper/

> Cheers,
> Stephen