GETDATE(3)						     Library Functions Manual							GETDATE(3)

NAME

       getdate - convert time and date from ASCII

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <sys/timeb.h>

       time_t getdate(buf, now)
       char *buf;
       struct timeb *now;

DESCRIPTION

       Getdate	is  a  routine	that converts most common time specifications to standard UNIX format.	The first argument is the character string
       containing the time and date; the second is the assumed current time (used for relative specifications); if NULL  is  passed,  ftime(2)	is
       used to obtain the current time and timezone.

       The character string consists of 0 or more specifications of the following form:

       tod    A  tod  is  a time of day, which is of the form hh:mm[:ss] (or hhmm) [meridian] [zone].  If no meridian - am or pm - is specified, a
	      24-hour clock is used.  A tod may be specified as just hh followed by a meridian.

       date   A date is a specific month and day, and possibly a year.	Acceptable formats are mm/dd[/yy] and monthname dd[, yy] If  omitted,  the
	      year  defaults  to the current year; if a year is specified as a number less than 100, 1900 is added.  If a number not followed by a
	      day or relative time unit occurs, it will be interpreted as a year if a tod, monthname, and dd have already been	specified;  other-
	      wise, it will be treated as a tod.  This rule allows the output from date(1) or ctime(3) to be passed as input to getdate.

       day    A  day  of  the  week may be specified; the current day will be used if appropriate.  A day may be preceeded by a number, indicating
	      which instance of that day is desired; the default is 1.	Negative numbers indicate times past.  Some symbolic numbers are accepted:
	      last,  next,  and  the ordinals first through twelfth (second is ambiguous, and is not accepted as an ordinal number).  The symbolic
	      number next is equivalent to 2; thus, next monday refers not to the immediately coming Monday, but to the one a week later.

       relative time
	      Specifications relative to the current time are also accepted.  The format is [number] unit; acceptable units are year, month, fort-
	      night, week, day, hour, minute, and second.

       The  actual date is formed as follows:  first, any absolute date and/or time is processed and converted.  Using that time as the base, day-
       of-week specifications are added; last, relative specifications are used.  If a date or day is specified, and no absolute or relative  time
       is  given,  midnight is used.  Finally, a correction is applied so that the correct hour of the day is produced after allowing for daylight
       savings time differences.

       Getdate accepts most common abbreviations for days, months, etc.; in particular, it will recognize them with upper or lower case first let-
       ter, and will recognize three-letter abbreviations for any of them, with or without a trailing period.  Units, such as weeks, may be speci-
       fied in the singular or plural.	Timezone and meridian values may be in upper or lower case, and with or without periods.

FILES

       /usr/lib/libu.a

SEE ALSO

       ctime(3), time(2)

AUTHOR

       Steven M. Bellovin (unc!smb)
       Dept. of Computer Science
       University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

BUGS

       Because yacc(1) is used to parse the date, getdate cannot be used a subroutine to any program that also needs yacc.
       The grammar and scanner are rather primitive; certain desirable and unambiguous constructions are not accepted.	Worse yet, the meaning	of
       some legal phrases is not what is expected; next week is identical to 2 weeks.
       The daylight savings time correction is not perfect, and can get confused if handed times between midnight and 2:00 am on the days that the
       reckoning changes.
       Because localtime(2) accepts an old-style time format without zone information, attempting to pass getdate a current time containing a dif-
       ferent zone will probably fail.

									unc								GETDATE(3)