Editing IRStats Technical Documentation (section)

== Date ==
A date object was implemented because there were some specific things that needed to be done with dates.

===Functions===
*new(date_hash) - Creates a new date object when passed a hash with the keys 'day', 'month' and 'year'.
*validate() - If the date is not valid, it will be modified to a sensible value.  E.G. if it's Feb 30th, it will be modified to Feb 29th or 28th, dependant on if it's a leap year.
*set(part_name, int) - Sets part of the date ('year','month' or 'day') to a specific value.
*decrement(period) - increments the date by a period ('day', 'week', 'month', 'quarter', 'year').  Calls the mod_date function, which does the muscle work.
*increment(period) - decrements by calling mod_date.
*part(part_name, style - Returns the day, month or year.  For month, if style=='text', returns a three letter string, otherwise returns an integer.  For year, if style=='short', returns the last two digits, otherwise returns all four.
*difference(date_object) - returns the difference in days between itself and another date.
*less_than(date_object) - compares itself to another date object.  Returns 1 if it's less than it, otherwise returns 0.
*greater_than(date_object) - compares itself to another date object.  Returns 1 if it's greater than it, otherwise returns 0.
*month_name() - returns the three letter string of the month.
*render(format_string) - returns a date string.  Format can be:
**'short' - Calls render_abbreviated - returns a date like this: 05-Jul-77
**'numerical' (default) - Calls render_numerical - returns a date like this: 19770705
*clone - returns an new, identical date object.