Getting the Time

I know this is a Perl question, but I've just about got this script
working that I ask about a couple days ago (many thanks to all!), and I
have hit a brick wall.

All I'm trying to do is get the current time (date, time).  However, the
structure I used from my Perl book doesn't appear to work:

  $currtime = time();
  $timelist=localtime($currtime);

Any other suggestion?  Thanks.

-ron