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STRPTIME(3)		   Linux Programmers Manual		  STRPTIME(3)



NAME
       strptime  - convert a string representation of time to a time tm struc
       ture

SYNOPSIS
       #define _XOPEN_SOURCE /* glibc2 needs this */
       #include 

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

DESCRIPTION
       The strptime() function is the converse	function  to  strftime(3)  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  charac
       ters  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 for
       mat) 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 compari
       son 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 locales equivalent of AM or PM.  (Note: there may be none.)

       %r     The 12-hour clock time (using the locales 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  behavior  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 locales date format.

       %X     The time, using the locales 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 twen
	      tieth 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 charac
       ters 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 locales alternative date and time representation.

       %EC    The  name  of the base year (period) in the locales alternative
	      representation.

       %Ex    The locales alternative date representation.

       %EX    The locales alternative time representation.

       %Ey    The offset from %EC (year only) in the locales alternative rep
	      resentation.

       %EY    The full alternative year representation.

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

       %Od or %Oe
	      The day of the month using the locales alternative numeric sym
	      bols; leading zeros are permitted but not required.

       %OH    The  hour (24-hour clock) using the locales alternative numeric
	      symbols.

       %OI    The hour (12-hour clock) using the locales alternative  numeric
	      symbols.

       %Om    The month using the locales alternative numeric symbols.

       %OM    The minutes using the locales alternative numeric symbols.

       %OS    The seconds using the locales alternative numeric symbols.

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

       %Ow    The number of the weekday (Sunday=0) using the locales alterna
	      tive numeric symbols.

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

       %Oy    The year (offset from %C) using the locales alternative numeric
	      symbols.

       The broken-down time structure tm is defined in  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 contains
       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 null byte
       at the end of the string.  If strptime() fails to match all of the for
       mat string and therefore an error occurred the function returns NULL.

CONFORMING TO
       SUSv2, POSIX.1-2001.

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 glibc
       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.

   Glibc Notes
       For reasons of symmetry, glibc tries to support for strptime() the same
       format characters as for strftime(3).  (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.	Other
	      wise,  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(3), %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, that is, since 1970-01-01
	      00:00:00	UTC.   Leap seconds are not counted unless leap second
	      support is available.

       The glibc implementation does not require whitespace between two  field
       descriptors.

EXAMPLE
       The  following  example	demonstrates  the  use of strptime() and strf
       time(3).

       #define _XOPEN_SOURCE
       #include 
       #include 
       #include 

       int
       main(void)
       {
	   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);
	   exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
       }

SEE ALSO
       time(2),  getdate(3),   scanf(3),   setlocale(3),   strftime(3),   fea
       ture_test_macros(7)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 3.05 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting  bugs,  can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



GNU				  2001-11-12			   STRPTIME(3)




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