1.\" 2.\" Copyright (c) 1997 Joerg Wunsch 3.\" 4.\" All rights reserved. 5.\" 6.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 7.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 8.\" are met: 9.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 11.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 13.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 14.\" 15.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE DEVELOPERS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR 16.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES 17.\" OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. 18.\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE DEVELOPERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, 19.\" INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT 20.\" NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, 21.\" DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY 22.\" THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT 23.\" (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF 24.\" THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. 25.\" 26.\" $FreeBSD$ 27.\" " 28.Dd January 4, 2003 29.Dt STRPTIME 3 30.Os 31.Sh NAME 32.Nm strptime 33.Nd parse date and time string 34.Sh LIBRARY 35.Lb libc 36.Sh SYNOPSIS 37.In time.h 38.Ft char * 39.Fo strptime 40.Fa "const char * restrict buf" 41.Fa "const char * restrict format" 42.Fa "struct tm * restrict timeptr" 43.Fc 44.Sh DESCRIPTION 45The 46.Fn strptime 47function parses the string in the buffer 48.Fa buf 49according to the string pointed to by 50.Fa format , 51and fills in the elements of the structure pointed to by 52.Fa timeptr . 53The resulting values will be relative to the local time zone. 54Thus, it can be considered the reverse operation of 55.Xr strftime 3 . 56.Pp 57The 58.Fa format 59string consists of zero or more conversion specifications and 60ordinary characters. 61All ordinary characters are matched exactly with the buffer, where 62white space in the format string will match any amount of white space 63in the buffer. 64All conversion specifications are identical to those described in 65.Xr strftime 3 . 66.Pp 67Two-digit year values, including formats 68.Fa %y 69and 70.Fa \&%D , 71are now interpreted as beginning at 1969 per POSIX requirements. 72Years 69-00 are interpreted in the 20th century (1969-2000), years 7301-68 in the 21st century (2001-2068). 74.Pp 75If the 76.Fa format 77string does not contain enough conversion specifications to completely 78specify the resulting 79.Vt struct tm , 80the unspecified members of 81.Va timeptr 82are left untouched. 83For example, if 84.Fa format 85is 86.Dq Li "%H:%M:%S" , 87only 88.Va tm_hour , 89.Va tm_sec 90and 91.Va tm_min 92will be modified. 93If time relative to today is desired, initialize the 94.Fa timeptr 95structure with today's date before passing it to 96.Fn strptime . 97.Sh RETURN VALUES 98Upon successful completion, 99.Fn strptime 100returns the pointer to the first character in 101.Fa buf 102that has not been required to satisfy the specified conversions in 103.Fa format . 104It returns 105.Dv NULL 106if one of the conversions failed. 107.Sh SEE ALSO 108.Xr date 1 , 109.Xr scanf 3 , 110.Xr strftime 3 111.Sh HISTORY 112The 113.Fn strptime 114function appeared in 115.Fx 3.0 . 116.Sh AUTHORS 117The 118.Fn strptime 119function has been contributed by Powerdog Industries. 120.Pp 121This man page was written by 122.An J\(:org Wunsch . 123.Sh BUGS 124Both the 125.Fa %e 126and 127.Fa %l 128format specifiers may incorrectly scan one too many digits 129if the intended values comprise only a single digit 130and that digit is followed immediately by another digit. 131Both specifiers accept zero-padded values, 132even though they are both defined as taking unpadded values. 133.Pp 134The 135.Fa %p 136format specifier has no effect unless it is parsed 137.Em after 138hour-related specifiers. 139Specifying 140.Fa %l 141without 142.Fa %p 143will produce undefined results. 144Note that 12AM 145(ante meridiem) 146is taken as midnight 147and 12PM 148(post meridiem) 149is taken as noon. 150.Pp 151The 152.Fa %U 153and 154.Fa %W 155format specifiers accept any value within the range 00 to 53 156without validating against other values supplied (like month 157or day of the year, for example). 158.Pp 159The 160.Fa %Z 161format specifier only accepts time zone abbreviations of the local time zone, 162or the value "GMT". 163This limitation is because of ambiguity due to of the over loading of time 164zone abbreviations. 165One such example is 166.Fa EST 167which is both Eastern Standard Time and Eastern Australia Summer Time. 168.Pp 169The 170.Fn strptime 171function does not correctly handle multibyte characters in the 172.Fa format 173argument. 174