STRPTIME(3)						     Linux Programmer's Manual						       STRPTIME(3)

NAME

       strptime - convert a string representation of time to a time tm structure

SYNOPSIS

       #define _XOPEN_SOURCE /* glibc2 needs this */
       #include <time.h>

       char *strptime(const char *s, const char *format, struct tm *tm);

DESCRIPTION

       The strptime() function is the converse function to strftime() and converts the character string pointed to by s to values which are stored
       in the tm structure pointed to by tm, using the format specified by format.  Here format is a  character  string  that  consists  of  field
       descriptors  and  text  characters, reminiscent of scanf(3).  Each field descriptor consists of a % character followed by another character
       that specifies the replacement for the field descriptor.  All other characters in the format string must have a matching character  in  the
       input  string,  except for whitespace, which matches zero or more whitespace characters in the input string.  There should be whitespace or
       other alphanumeric characters between any two field descriptors.

       The strptime() function processes the input string from left to right.  Each of the three possible input elements (whitespace, literal,	or
       format)	are  handled  one  after the other.  If the input cannot be matched to the format string the function stops.  The remainder of the
       format and input strings are not processed.

       The supported input field descriptors are listed below.	In case a text string (such as a weekday or month name) is to be matched, the com-
       parison is case insensitive.  In case a number is to be matched, leading zeros are permitted but not required.

       %%     The % character.

       %a or %A
	      The weekday name according to the current locale, in abbreviated form or the full name.

       %b or %B or %h
	      The month name according to the current locale, in abbreviated form or the full name.

       %c     The date and time representation for the current locale.

       %C     The century number (0-99).

       %d or %e
	      The day of month (1-31).

       %D     Equivalent  to %m/%d/%y. (This is the American style date, very confusing to non-Americans, especially since %d/%m/%y is widely used
	      in Europe.  The ISO 8601 standard format is %Y-%m-%d.)

       %H     The hour (0-23).

       %I     The hour on a 12-hour clock (1-12).

       %j     The day number in the year (1-366).

       %m     The month number (1-12).

       %M     The minute (0-59).

       %n     Arbitrary whitespace.

       %p     The locale's equivalent of AM or PM. (Note: there may be none.)

       %r     The 12-hour clock time (using the locale's AM or PM).  In the POSIX locale equivalent to %I:%M:%S %p.  If t_fmt_ampm is empty in the
	      LC_TIME part of the current locale then the behaviour is undefined.

       %R     Equivalent to %H:%M.

       %S     The second (0-60; 60 may occur for leap seconds; earlier also 61 was allowed).

       %t     Arbitrary whitespace.

       %T     Equivalent to %H:%M:%S.

       %U     The week number with Sunday the first day of the week (0-53).  The first Sunday of January is the first day of week 1.

       %w     The weekday number (0-6) with Sunday = 0.

       %W     The week number with Monday the first day of the week (0-53).  The first Monday of January is the first day of week 1.

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

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

       %y     The  year within century (0-99).	When a century is not otherwise specified, values in the range 69-99 refer to years in the twenti-
	      eth century (1969-1999); values in the range 00-68 refer to years in the twenty-first century (2000-2068).

       %Y     The year, including century (for example, 1991).

       Some field descriptors can be modified by the E or O modifier characters to indicate that an alternative format or specification should	be
       used. If the alternative format or specification does not exist in the current locale, the unmodified field descriptor is used.

       The E modifier specifies that the input string may contain alternative locale-dependent versions of the date and time representation:

       %Ec    The locale's alternative 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.

       The O modifier specifies that the numerical input may be in an alternative locale-dependent format:

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

       %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.

       The broken-down time structure tm is defined in <time.h> as follows:

	      struct tm {
		      int     tm_sec;	      /* seconds */
		      int     tm_min;	      /* minutes */
		      int     tm_hour;	      /* hours */
		      int     tm_mday;	      /* day of the month */
		      int     tm_mon;	      /* month */
		      int     tm_year;	      /* year */
		      int     tm_wday;	      /* day of the week */
		      int     tm_yday;	      /* day in the year */
		      int     tm_isdst;       /* daylight saving time */
	      };

RETURN VALUE

       The  return  value  of the function is a pointer to the first character not processed in this function call.  In case the input string con-
       tains more characters than required by the format string the return value points right after the last consumed input  character.   In  case
       the  whole  input string is consumed the return value points to the NUL byte at the end of the string.  If strptime() fails to match all of
       the format string and therefore an error occurred the function returns NULL.

CONFORMING TO

       XPG4, SUSv2, POSIX 1003.1-2001.

EXAMPLE

       The following example demonstrates the use of strptime() and strftime().

       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <time.h>

       int main() {
	       struct tm tm;
	       char buf[255];

	       strptime("2001-11-12 18:31:01", "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", &tm);
	       strftime(buf, sizeof(buf), "%d %b %Y %H:%M", &tm);
	       puts(buf);
	       return 0;
       }

GNU EXTENSIONS

       For reasons of symmetry, glibc tries to support for strptime the same format characters as for strftime.  (In most cases the  corresponding
       fields are parsed, but no field in tm is changed.)  This leads to

       %F     Equivalent to %Y-%m-%d, the ISO 8601 date format.

       %g     The year corresponding to the ISO week number, but without the century (0-99).

       %G     The year corresponding to the ISO week number. (For example, 1991.)

       %u     The day of the week as a decimal number (1-7, where Monday = 1).

       %V     The  ISO	8601:1988  week number as a decimal number (1-53).  If the week (starting on Monday) containing 1 January has four or more
	      days in the new year, then it is considered week 1. Otherwise, it is the last week of the previous year, and the next week  is  week
	      1.

       %z     An RFC-822/ISO 8601 standard time zone specification.

       %Z     The timezone name.

       Similarly, because of GNU extensions to strftime, %k is accepted as a synonym for %H, and %l should be accepted as a synonym for %I, and %P
       is accepted as a synonym for %p.  Finally

       %s     The number of seconds since the epoch, i.e., since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC.  Leap seconds are not counted unless leap second support
	      is available.

       The GNU libc implementation does not require whitespace between two field descriptors.

NOTES

       In  principle,  this function does not initialize tm but only stores the values specified.  This means that tm should be initialized before
       the call.  Details differ a bit between different Unix systems.	The GNU libc implementation does not touch  those  fields  which  are  not
       explicitly specified, except that it recomputes the tm_wday and tm_yday field if any of the year, month, or day elements changed.

       This  function is available since libc 4.6.8.  Linux libc4 and libc5 includes define the prototype unconditionally; glibc2 includes provide
       a prototype only when _XOPEN_SOURCE or _GNU_SOURCE are defined.

       Before libc 5.4.13 whitespace (and the 'n' and 't' specifications) was not  handled,  no  'E'  and  'O'	locale	modifier  characters  were
       accepted, and the 'C' specification was a synonym for the 'c' specification.

       The  'y' (year in century) specification is taken to specify a year in the 20th century by libc4 and libc5. It is taken to be a year in the
       range 1950-2049 by glibc 2.0. It is taken to be a year in 1969-2068 since glibc 2.1.

SEE ALSO

       time(2), getdate(3), scanf(3), setlocale(3), strftime(3)

GNU
								    2001-11-12							       STRPTIME(3)