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: src/lib/libc/stdtime/strptime.3,v 1.9.2.9 2003/05/24 00:01:31 keramida Exp $ 27.\" $DragonFly: src/lib/libc/stdtime/strptime.3,v 1.3 2006/02/17 19:35:06 swildner Exp $ 28.\" " 29.Dd January 4, 2003 30.Dt STRPTIME 3 31.Os 32.Sh NAME 33.Nm strptime 34.Nd parse date and time string 35.Sh LIBRARY 36.Lb libc 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38.In time.h 39.Ft char * 40.Fo strptime 41.Fa "const char * restrict buf" 42.Fa "const char * restrict format" 43.Fa "struct tm * restrict timeptr" 44.Fc 45.Sh DESCRIPTION 46The 47.Fn strptime 48function parses the string in the buffer 49.Fa buf 50according to the string pointed to by 51.Fa format , 52and fills in the elements of the structure pointed to by 53.Fa timeptr . 54The resulting values will be relative to the local time zone. 55Thus, it can be considered the reverse operation of 56.Xr strftime 3 . 57.Pp 58The 59.Fa format 60string consists of zero or more conversion specifications and 61ordinary characters. 62All ordinary characters are matched exactly with the buffer, where 63white space in the format string will match any amount of white space 64in the buffer. 65All conversion specifications are identical to those described in 66.Xr strftime 3 . 67.Pp 68Two-digit year values, including formats 69.Fa %y 70and 71.Fa \&%D , 72are now interpreted as beginning at 1969 per POSIX requirements. 73Years 69-00 are interpreted in the 20th century (1969-2000), years 7401-68 in the 21st century (2001-2068). 75.Pp 76If the 77.Fa format 78string does not contain enough conversion specifications to completely 79specify the resulting 80.Vt struct tm , 81the unspecified members of 82.Va timeptr 83are left untouched. 84For example, if 85.Fa format 86is 87.Dq Li "%H:%M:%S" , 88only 89.Va tm_hour , 90.Va tm_sec 91and 92.Va tm_min 93will be modified. 94If time relative to today is desired, initialize the 95.Fa timeptr 96structure with today's date before passing it to 97.Fn strptime . 98.Sh RETURN VALUES 99Upon successful completion, 100.Fn strptime 101returns the pointer to the first character in 102.Fa buf 103that has not been required to satisfy the specified conversions in 104.Fa format . 105It returns 106.Dv NULL 107if one of the conversions failed. 108.Sh SEE ALSO 109.Xr date 1 , 110.Xr scanf 3 , 111.Xr strftime 3 112.Sh HISTORY 113The 114.Fn strptime 115function appeared in 116.Fx 3.0 . 117.Sh AUTHORS 118The 119.Fn strptime 120function has been contributed by Powerdog Industries. 121.Pp 122This man page was written by 123.An J\(:org Wunsch . 124.Sh BUGS 125Both the 126.Fa %e 127and 128.Fa %l 129format specifiers may incorrectly scan one too many digits 130if the intended values comprise only a single digit 131and that digit is followed immediately by another digit. 132Both specifiers accept zero-padded values, 133even though they are both defined as taking unpadded values. 134.Pp 135The 136.Fa %p 137format specifier has no effect unless it is parsed 138.Em after 139hour-related specifiers. 140Specifying 141.Fa %l 142without 143.Fa %p 144will produce undefined results. 145Note that 12AM 146(ante meridiem) 147is taken as midnight 148and 12PM 149(post meridiem) 150is taken as noon. 151.Pp 152The 153.Fa %U 154and 155.Fa %W 156format specifiers accept any value within the range 00 to 53 157without validating against other values supplied (like month 158or day of the year, for example). 159.Pp 160The 161.Fa %Z 162format specifier only accepts time zone abbreviations of the local time zone, 163or the value "GMT". 164This limitation is because of ambiguity due to of the over loading of time 165zone abbreviations. One 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