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 272533 2014-10-04 18:00:15Z pfg $ 27.\" " 28.Dd August 7, 2016 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). 83Four-digit year values in 84.Fa \&%Y 85specifier are interpreted as days since year 1900 86as per POSIX requirements. 87The 88.Fa \&%U 89and 90.Fa %W 91format specifiers accept any value within the range 00 to 53. 92.Pp 93The time zone 94.Fa \&%z 95format specifier accepts both RFC 822 (+hhmm) and ISO 8601 (+hhmm +hh:mm +hh Z) 96standard time zone formats. 97The -00, -00:00, -0000 time zone values are also accepted as per RFC 3339. 98.Pp 99If the 100.Fa format 101string does not contain enough conversion specifications to completely 102specify the resulting 103.Vt struct tm , 104the unspecified members of 105.Va timeptr 106are left untouched. 107For example, if 108.Fa format 109is 110.Dq Li "%H:%M:%S" , 111only 112.Va tm_hour , 113.Va tm_sec 114and 115.Va tm_min 116will be modified. 117If time relative to today is desired, initialize the 118.Fa timeptr 119structure with today's date before passing it to 120.Fn strptime . 121.Sh RETURN VALUES 122Upon successful completion, 123.Fn strptime 124returns the pointer to the first character in 125.Fa buf 126that has not been required to satisfy the specified conversions in 127.Fa format . 128It returns 129.Dv NULL 130if one of the conversions failed. 131.Fn strptime_l 132returns the same values as 133.Fn strptime . 134.Sh SEE ALSO 135.Xr date 1 , 136.Xr scanf 3 , 137.Xr strftime 3 138.Sh HISTORY 139The 140.Fn strptime 141function appeared in 142.Fx 3.0 . 143.Sh AUTHORS 144The 145.Fn strptime 146function has been contributed by Powerdog Industries. 147.Pp 148This man page was written by 149.An J\(:org Wunsch . 150.Sh BUGS 151Both the 152.Fa %e 153and 154.Fa %l 155format specifiers may incorrectly scan one too many digits 156if the intended values comprise only a single digit 157and that digit is followed immediately by another digit. 158Both specifiers accept zero-padded values, 159even though they are both defined as taking unpadded values. 160.Pp 161The 162.Fa %p 163format specifier has no effect unless it is parsed 164.Em after 165hour-related specifiers. 166Specifying 167.Fa %l 168without 169.Fa %p 170will produce undefined results. 171Note that 12AM 172(ante meridiem) 173is taken as midnight 174and 12PM 175(post meridiem) 176is taken as noon. 177.Pp 178The 179.Fa %Z 180format specifier only accepts time zone abbreviations of the local time zone, 181or the value "GMT". 182This limitation is because of ambiguity due to of the over loading of time 183zone abbreviations. 184One such example is 185.Fa EST 186which is both Eastern Standard Time and Eastern Australia Summer Time. 187.Pp 188The 189.Fn strptime 190function does not correctly handle multibyte characters in the 191.Fa format 192argument. 193