STRPTIME(3P)						     POSIX Programmer's Manual						      STRPTIME(3P)

PROLOG

       This  manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the correspond-
       ing Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME

       strptime - date and time conversion

SYNOPSIS

       #include <time.h>

       char *strptime(const char *restrict buf, const char *restrict format,
	      struct tm *restrict tm);

DESCRIPTION

       The strptime() function shall convert the character string pointed to by buf to values which are stored in the tm structure pointed  to	by
       tm, using the format specified by format.

       The  format  is composed of zero or more directives. Each directive is composed of one of the following: one or more white-space characters
       (as specified by isspace()); an ordinary character (neither '%' nor a white-space character); or a conversion specification.  Each  conver-
       sion specification is composed of a '%' character followed by a conversion character which specifies the replacement required. The applica-
       tion shall ensure that there is white-space or other non-alphanumeric characters between any two conversion specifications.  The  following
       conversion specifications are supported:

       %a     The day of the week, using the locale's weekday names; either the abbreviated or full name may be specified.

       %A     Equivalent to %a .

       %b     The month, using the locale's month names; either the abbreviated or full name may be specified.

       %B     Equivalent to %b .

       %c     Replaced by the locale's appropriate date and time representation.

       %C     The century number [00,99]; leading zeros are permitted but not required.

       %d     The day of the month [01,31]; leading zeros are permitted but not required.

       %D     The date as %m / %d / %y .

       %e     Equivalent to %d .

       %h     Equivalent to %b .

       %H     The hour (24-hour clock) [00,23]; leading zeros are permitted but not required.

       %I     The hour (12-hour clock) [01,12]; leading zeros are permitted but not required.

       %j     The day number of the year [001,366]; leading zeros are permitted but not required.

       %m     The month number [01,12]; leading zeros are permitted but not required.

       %M     The minute [00,59]; leading zeros are permitted but not required.

       %n     Any white space.

       %p     The locale's equivalent of a.m or p.m.

       %r     12-hour  clock  time  using the AM/PM notation if t_fmt_ampm is not an empty string in the LC_TIME portion of the current locale; in
	      the POSIX locale, this shall be equivalent to %I : %M : %S %p .

       %R     The time as %H : %M .

       %S     The seconds [00,60]; leading zeros are permitted but not required.

       %t     Any white space.

       %T     The time as %H : %M : %S .

       %U     The week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]; leading zeros are permitted  but  not
	      required.

       %w     The weekday as a decimal number [0,6], with 0 representing Sunday; leading zeros are permitted but not required.

       %W     The  week  number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]; leading zeros are permitted but not
	      required.

       %x     The date, using the locale's date format.

       %X     The time, using the locale's time format.

       %y     The year within century. When a century is not otherwise specified, values in the range [69,99] shall refer to years  1969  to  1999
	      inclusive,  and  values in the range [00,68] shall refer to years 2000 to 2068 inclusive; leading zeros shall be permitted but shall
	      not be required.

       Note:
	      It is expected that in a future version of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 the default century inferred from a 2-digit year will change.  (This
	      would apply to all commands accepting a 2-digit year as input.)

       %Y     The year, including the century (for example, 1988).

       %%     Replaced by % .

   Modified Conversion Specifiers
       Some  conversion  specifiers  can  be  modified	by the E and O modifier characters to indicate that an alternative format or specification
       should be used rather than the one normally used by the unmodified conversion specifier. If the alternative format  or  specification  does
       not exist in the current locale, the behavior shall be as if the unmodified conversion specification were used.

       %Ec    The locale's alternative appropriate date and time representation.

       %EC    The name of the base year (period) in the locale's alternative representation.

       %Ex    The locale's alternative date representation.

       %EX    The locale's alternative time representation.

       %Ey    The offset from %EC (year only) in the locale's alternative representation.

       %EY    The full alternative year representation.

       %Od    The day of the month using the locale's alternative numeric symbols; leading zeros are permitted but not required.

       %Oe    Equivalent to %Od .

       %OH    The hour (24-hour clock) using the locale's alternative numeric symbols.

       %OI    The hour (12-hour clock) using the locale's alternative numeric symbols.

       %Om    The month using the locale's alternative numeric symbols.

       %OM    The minutes using the locale's alternative numeric symbols.

       %OS    The seconds using the locale's alternative numeric symbols.

       %OU    The week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week) using the locale's alternative numeric symbols.

       %Ow    The number of the weekday (Sunday=0) using the locale's alternative numeric symbols.

       %OW    The week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) using the locale's alternative numeric symbols.

       %Oy    The year (offset from %C ) using the locale's alternative numeric symbols.

       A  conversion  specification  composed of white-space characters is executed by scanning input up to the first character that is not white-
       space (which remains unscanned), or until no more characters can be scanned.

       A conversion specification that is an ordinary character is executed by scanning the next character  from  the  buffer.	If  the  character
       scanned	from  the  buffer  differs from the one comprising the directive, the directive fails, and the differing and subsequent characters
       remain unscanned.

       A series of conversion specifications composed of %n, %t, white-space characters, or any combination is executed  by  scanning  up  to  the
       first character that is not white space (which remains unscanned), or until no more characters can be scanned.

       Any other conversion specification is executed by scanning characters until a character matching the next directive is scanned, or until no
       more characters can be scanned. These characters, except the one matching the next directive, are then compared to the locale values  asso-
       ciated  with the conversion specifier. If a match is found, values for the appropriate tm structure members are set to values corresponding
       to the locale information. Case is ignored when matching items in buf such as month or weekday names. If  no  match  is	found,	strptime()
       fails and no more characters are scanned.

RETURN VALUE

       Upon  successful  completion,  strptime()  shall  return a pointer to the character following the last character parsed.  Otherwise, a null
       pointer shall be returned.

ERRORS

       No errors are defined.

       The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES

       None.

APPLICATION USAGE

       Several "equivalent to" formats and the special processing of white-space characters are provided in order to ease  the	use  of  identical
       format strings for strftime() and strptime().

       Applications should use %Y (4-digit years) in preference to %y (2-digit years).

       It  is  unspecified  whether  multiple calls to strptime() using the same tm structure will update the current contents of the structure or
       overwrite all contents of the structure.  Conforming applications should make a single call to strptime() with a format and all data needed
       to completely specify the date and time being converted.

RATIONALE

       None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       The strptime() function is expected to be mandatory in the next version of this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001.

SEE ALSO

       scanf(), strftime(), time(), the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, <time.h>

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technol-
       ogy -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of
       Electrical  and	Electronics  Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE
       and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can  be  obtained
       online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

IEEE
/The Open Group						       2003							      STRPTIME(3P)