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 May 8, 1997 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.Fd #include <time.h> 38.Ft char * 39.Fn strptime "const char *buf" "const char *format" "struct tm *timeptr" 40.Sh DESCRIPTION 41The 42.Fn strptime 43function parses the string in the buffer 44.Fa buf 45according to the string pointed to by 46.Fa format , 47and fills in the elements of the structure pointed to by 48.Fa timeptr . 49The resulting values will be relative to the local time zone. 50Thus, it can be considered the reverse operation of 51.Xr strftime 3 . 52.Pp 53The 54.Fa format 55string consists of zero or more conversion specifications and 56ordinary characters. 57All ordinary characters are matched exactly with the buffer, where 58white space in the format string will match any amount of white space 59in the buffer. 60All conversion specifications are identical to those described in 61.Xr strftime 3 . 62.Pp 63Two-digit year values, including formats 64.Fa %y 65and 66.Fa \&%D , 67are now interpreted as beginning at 1969 per POSIX requirements. 68Years 69-00 are interpreted in the 20th century (1969-2000), years 6901-68 in the 21st century (2001-2068). 70.Sh RETURN VALUES 71Upon successful completion, 72.Fn strptime 73returns the pointer to the first character in 74.Fa buf 75that has not been required to satisfy the specified conversions in 76.Fa format . 77It returns 78.Dv NULL 79if one of the conversions failed. 80.Sh SEE ALSO 81.Xr date 1 , 82.Xr scanf 3 , 83.Xr strftime 3 84.Sh AUTHORS 85The 86.Fn strptime 87function has been contributed by Powerdog Industries. 88.Pp 89This man page was written by 90.An J\(:org Wunsch . 91.Sh HISTORY 92The 93.Fn strptime 94function appeared in 95.Fx 3.0 . 96.Pp 97.Sh BUGS 98Both the 99.Fa %e 100and 101.Fa %l 102format specifiers may incorrectly scan one too many digits 103if the intended values comprise only a single digit 104and that digit is followed immediately by another digit. 105Both specifiers accept zero-padded values, 106even though they are both defined as taking unpadded values. 107.Pp 108The 109.Fa %p 110format specifier has no effect unless it is parsed 111.Em after 112hour-related specifiers. 113Specifying 114.Fa %l 115without 116.Fa %p 117will produce undefined results. 118Note that 12AM 119.Pq ante meridiem 120is taken as midnight 121and 12PM 122.Pq post meridiem 123is taken as noon. 124.Pp 125The 126.Fa %U 127and 128.Fa %W 129format specifiers accept any value within the range 00 to 53 130without validating against other values supplied (like month 131or day of the year, for example). 132.Pp 133The 134.Fa %Z 135format specifier only accepts time zone abbreviations of the local time zone, 136or the value "GMT". 137This limitation is because of ambiguity due to of the over loading of time 138zone abbreviations. One such example is 139.Fa EST 140which is both Eastern Standard Time and Eastern Australia Summer Time. 141