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. 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26.\" $FreeBSD: head/lib/libc/stdtime/strptime.3 237573 2012-06-25 21:51:40Z issyl0 $ 27.\" " 28.Dd June 25, 2012 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.In time.h 45.In xlocale.h 46.Ft char * 47.Fn strptime_l "const char * restrict buf" "const char * restrict format" "struct tm * restrict timeptr" "locale_t loc" 48.Sh DESCRIPTION 49The 50.Fn strptime 51function parses the string in the buffer 52.Fa buf 53according to the string pointed to by 54.Fa format , 55and fills in the elements of the structure pointed to by 56.Fa timeptr . 57The resulting values will be relative to the local time zone. 58Thus, it can be considered the reverse operation of 59.Xr strftime 3 . 60The 61.Fn strptime_l 62function does the same as 63.Fn strptime , 64but takes an explicit locale rather than using the current locale. 65.Pp 66The 67.Fa format 68string consists of zero or more conversion specifications and 69ordinary characters. 70All ordinary characters are matched exactly with the buffer, where 71white space in the format string will match any amount of white space 72in the buffer. 73All conversion specifications are identical to those described in 74.Xr strftime 3 . 75.Pp 76Two-digit year values, including formats 77.Fa %y 78and 79.Fa \&%D , 80are now interpreted as beginning at 1969 per POSIX requirements. 81Years 69-00 are interpreted in the 20th century (1969-2000), years 8201-68 in the 21st century (2001-2068). 83.Pp 84If the 85.Fa format 86string does not contain enough conversion specifications to completely 87specify the resulting 88.Vt struct tm , 89the unspecified members of 90.Va timeptr 91are left untouched. 92For example, if 93.Fa format 94is 95.Dq Li "%H:%M:%S" , 96only 97.Va tm_hour , 98.Va tm_sec 99and 100.Va tm_min 101will be modified. 102If time relative to today is desired, initialize the 103.Fa timeptr 104structure with today's date before passing it to 105.Fn strptime . 106.Sh RETURN VALUES 107Upon successful completion, 108.Fn strptime 109returns the pointer to the first character in 110.Fa buf 111that has not been required to satisfy the specified conversions in 112.Fa format . 113It returns 114.Dv NULL 115if one of the conversions failed. 116.Fn strptime_l 117returns the same values as 118.Fn strptime . 119.Sh SEE ALSO 120.Xr date 1 , 121.Xr scanf 3 , 122.Xr strftime 3 123.Sh HISTORY 124The 125.Fn strptime 126function appeared in 127.Fx 3.0 . 128.Sh AUTHORS 129The 130.Fn strptime 131function has been contributed by Powerdog Industries. 132.Pp 133This man page was written by 134.An J\(:org Wunsch . 135.Sh BUGS 136Both the 137.Fa %e 138and 139.Fa %l 140format specifiers may incorrectly scan one too many digits 141if the intended values comprise only a single digit 142and that digit is followed immediately by another digit. 143Both specifiers accept zero-padded values, 144even though they are both defined as taking unpadded values. 145.Pp 146The 147.Fa %p 148format specifier has no effect unless it is parsed 149.Em after 150hour-related specifiers. 151Specifying 152.Fa %l 153without 154.Fa %p 155will produce undefined results. 156Note that 12AM 157(ante meridiem) 158is taken as midnight 159and 12PM 160(post meridiem) 161is taken as noon. 162.Pp 163The 164.Fa \&%U 165and 166.Fa %W 167format specifiers accept any value within the range 00 to 53 168without validating against other values supplied (like month 169or day of the year, for example). 170.Pp 171The 172.Fa %Z 173format specifier only accepts time zone abbreviations of the local time zone, 174or the value "GMT". 175This limitation is because of ambiguity due to of the over loading of time 176zone abbreviations. 177One such example is 178.Fa EST 179which is both Eastern Standard Time and Eastern Australia Summer Time. 180.Pp 181The 182.Fn strptime 183function does not correctly handle multibyte characters in the 184.Fa format 185argument. 186