parsedate(3) [netbsd man page]
PARSEDATE(3) BSD Library Functions Manual PARSEDATE(3) NAME
parsedate -- date parsing function LIBRARY
System Utilities Library (libutil, -lutil) SYNOPSIS
#include <util.h> time_t parsedate(const char *datestr, const time_t *time, const int *tzoff); DESCRIPTION
The parsedate() function parses a datetime from datestr described in english relative to an optional time point and an optional timezone off- set in seconds specified in tzoff. If either time or tzoff are NULL, then the current time and timezone offset are used. The datestr is a sequence of white-space separated items. The white-space is optional the concatenated items are not ambiguous. An empty datestr is equivalent to midnight today (the beginning of this day). The following words have the indicated numeric meanings: last = -1, this = 0, first, next, or one = 1, second is unused so that it is not confused with ``seconds'', two = 2, third or three = 3, fourth or four = 4, fifth or five = 5, sixth or six = 6, seventh or seven = 7, eighth or eight = 8, ninth or nine = 9, tenth or ten = 10, eleventh or eleven = 11, twelfth or twoelve = 12. The following words are recognized in English only: AM, PM, a.m., p.m. The months: january, february, march, april, may, june, july, august, september, sept, october, november, december, The days of the week: sunday, monday, tuesday, tues, wednesday, wednes, thursday, thur, thurs, friday, saturday. Time units: year, month, fortnight, week, day, hour, minute, min, second, sec, tomorrow, yesterday. Timezone names: gmt, ut, utc, wet, bst, wat, at, ast, adt, est, edt, cst, cdt, mst, mdt, pst, pdt, yst, ydt, hst, hdt, cat, ahst, nt, idlw, cet, met, mewt, mest, swt, sst, fwt, fst, eet, bt, zp4, zp5, zp6, wast, wadt, cct, jst, east, eadt, gst, nzt, nzst, nzdt, idle. A variety of unambiguous dates are recognized: 69-09-10 For years between 69-99 we assume 1900+ and for years between 0-68 we assume 2000+. 2006-11-17 An ISO-8601 date. 10/1/2000 October 10, 2000; the common US format. 20 Jun 1994 23jun2001 1-sep-06 Other common abbreviations. 1/11 the year can be omitted As well as times: 10:01 10:12pm 12:11:01.000012 12:21-0500 Relative items are also supported: -1 month last friday one week ago this thursday next sunday +2 years Seconds since epoch (also known as UNIX time) are also supported: @735275209 Tue Apr 20 03:06:49 UTC 1993 RETURN VALUES
parsedate() returns the number of seconds passed since the Epoch, or -1 if the date could not be parsed properly. SEE ALSO
date(1), eeprom(8) HISTORY
The parser used in parsedate() was originally written by Steven M. Bellovin while at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was later tweaked by a couple of people on Usenet. Completely overhauled by Rich $alz and Jim Berets in August, 1990. The parsedate() function first appeared in NetBSD 4.0. BUGS
1 The parsedate() function is not re-entrant or thread-safe. 2 The parsedate() function cannot compute days before the unix epoch (19700101). 3 The parsedate() function assumes years less than 0 mean - year, years less than 70 mean 2000 + year, years less than 100 mean 1900 + year. BSD
December 20, 2010 BSD
Check Out this Related Man Page
curl_getdate(3) libcurl Manual curl_getdate(3) NAME
curl_getdate - Convert an date in a ASCII string to number of seconds since January 1, 1970 SYNOPSIS
#include <curl/curl.h> time_t curl_getdate(char *datestring, time_t *now"); DESCRIPTION
This function returns the number of seconds since January 1st 1970, for the date and time that the datestring parameter specifies. The now parameter is there and should hold the current time to allow the datestring to specify relative dates/times. Read further in the date string parser section below. PARSING DATES AND TIMES
A "date" is a string, possibly empty, containing many items separated by whitespace. The whitespace may be omitted when no ambiguity arises. The empty string means the beginning of today (i.e., midnight). Order of the items is immaterial. A date string may contain many flavors of items: calendar date items This can be specified in a number of different ways. Including 1970-09-17, 70-9-17, 70-09-17, 9/17/72, 24 September 1972, 24 Sept 72, 24 Sep 72, Sep 24, 1972, 24-sep-72, 24sep72. The year can also be omitted, for example: 9/17 or "sep 17". time of the day items This string specifies the time on a given day. Syntax supported includes: 18:19:0, 18:19, 6:19pm, 18:19-0500 (for specifying the time zone as well). time zone items Specifies international time zone. There are a few acronyms supported, but in general you should instead use the specific realtive time compared to UTC. Supported formats include: -1200, MST, +0100. day of the week items Specifies a day of the week. If this is mentioned alone it means that day of the week in the future. Days of the week may be spelled out in full: `Sunday', `Monday', etc or they may be abbreviated to their first three letters, optionally followed by a period. The special abbreviations `Tues' for `Tuesday', `Wednes' for `Wednesday' and `Thur' or `Thurs' for `Thursday' are also allowed. A number may precede a day of the week item to move forward supplementary weeks. It is best used in expression like `third mon- day'. In this context, `last DAY' or `next DAY' is also acceptable; they move one week before or after the day that DAY by itself would represent. relative items A relative item adjusts a date (or the current date if none) forward or backward. Example syntax includes: "1 year", "1 year ago", "2 days", "4 weeks". The string `tomorrow' is worth one day in the future (equivalent to `day'), the string `yesterday' is worth one day in the past (equivalent to `day ago'). pure numbers If the decimal number is of the form YYYYMMDD and no other calendar date item appears before it in the date string, then YYYY is read as the year, MM as the month number and DD as the day of the month, for the specified calendar date. RETURN VALUE
This function returns zero when it fails to parse the date string. Otherwise it returns the number of seconds as described. AUTHORS
Originally written by Steven M. Bellovin <smb@research.att.com> while at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Later tweaked by a couple of people on Usenet. Completely overhauled by Rich $alz <rsalz@bbn.com> and Jim Berets <jberets@bbn.com> in August, 1990. SEE ALSO
BUGS
Surely there are some, you tell me! libcurl 7.0 5 March 2001 curl_getdate(3)