Perl or Python: Convert date from dd/mm/yyyy to yyyy-mm-dd

If you are guaranteed to have well-formed data consisting of nothing else but a singleton date in the DD-MM-YYYY format, then this works:

# FIRST METHOD
my $ndate = join("-" => reverse split(m[/], $date));

That works on a $date holding "07/04/1776" but fails on "this 17/01/2010 and that 01/17/2010 there". Instead, use:

# SECOND METHOD
($ndate = $date) =~ s{
    \b
      ( \d \d   )
    / ( \d \d   )
    / ( \d {4}  )
    \b
}{$3-$2-$1}gx;

If you prefer a more "grammatical" regex, so that it’s easier to maintain and update, you can instead use this:

# THIRD METHOD
($ndate = $date) =~ s{
    (?&break)

              (?<DAY>    (?&day)    )
    (?&slash) (?<MONTH>  (?&month)  )
    (?&slash) (?<YEAR>   (?&year)   )

    (?&break)

    (?(DEFINE)
        (?<break> \b     )
        (?<slash> /      )
        (?<year>  \d {4} )
        (?<month> \d {2} )
        (?<day>   \d {2} )
    )
}{
    join "-" => @+{qw<YEAR MONTH DAY>}
}gxe;

Finally, if you have Unicode data, you might want to be a bit more careful.

# FOURTH METHOD
($ndate = $date) =~ s{
    (?&break_before)
              (?<DAY>    (?&day)    )
    (?&slash) (?<MONTH>  (?&month)  )
    (?&slash) (?<YEAR>   (?&year)   )
    (?&break_after)

    (?(DEFINE)
        (?<slash>     /                  )
        (?<start>     \A                 )
        (?<finish>    \z                 )

        # don't really want to use \D or [^0-9] here:
        (?<break_before>
           (?<= [\pC\pP\pS\p{Space}] )
         | (?<= \A                )
        )
        (?<break_after>
            (?= [\pC\pP\pS\p{Space}]
              | \z
            )
        )
        (?<digit> \d            )
        (?<year>  (?&am