STRPTIME(3) BSD Library Functions Manual STRPTIME(3)NAME
strptime — converts a character string to a time value
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <time.h>
char *
strptime(const char * restrict buf, const char * restrict format,
struct tm * restrict tm);
DESCRIPTION
The strptime() function converts the character string pointed to by buf
to values which are stored in the tm structure pointed to by tm, using
the format specified by format.
The format string consists of zero or more conversion specifications,
whitespace characters as defined by isspace(), and ordinary characters.
All ordinary characters in format are compared directly against the cor‐
responding characters in buf; comparisons which fail will cause
strptime() to fail. Whitespace characters in format match any number of
whitespace characters in buf, including none.
A conversion specification consists of a percent sign ‘%’ followed by one
or two conversion characters which specify the replacement required.
There must be white-space or other non-alphanumeric characters between
any two conversion specifications.
Conversion of alphanumeric strings (such as month and weekday names) is
done without regard to case. Conversion specifications which cannot be
matched will cause strptime() to fail.
The LC_TIME category defines the locale values for the conversion speci‐
fications. The following conversion specifications are supported:
%a the day of week, using the locale's weekday names; either the
abbreviated or full name may be specified.
%A the same as %a.
%b the month, using the locale's month names; either the abbreviated
or full name may be specified.
%B the same as %b.
%c the date and time, using the locale's date and time format.
%C the century number [0,99]; leading zeros are permitted but not
required. This conversion should be used in conjunction with the
%y conversion.
%d the day of month [1,31]; leading zeros are permitted but not
required.
%D the date as %m/%d/%y.
%e the same as %d.
%F the date as %Y-%m-%d (the ISO 8601 date format).
%g the year corresponding to the ISO week number, without the century.
(A NetBSD extension.)
%G the year corresponding to the ISO week number, with the century.
(A NetBSD extension.)
%h the same as %b.
%H the hour (24-hour clock) [0,23]; leading zeros are permitted but
not required.
%I the hour (12-hour clock) [1,12]; leading zeros are permitted but
not required.
%j the day number of the year [1,366]; leading zeros are permitted but
not required.
%k the same as %H.
%l the same as %I.
%m the month number [1,12]; leading zeros are permitted but not
required.
%M the minute [0,59]; leading zeros are permitted but not required.
%n any white-space, including none.
%p the locale's equivalent of a.m. or p.m.
%r the time (12-hour clock) with %p, using the locale's time format.
%R the time as %H:%M.
%S the seconds [0,61]; leading zeros are permitted but not required.
%s the number of seconds since the Epoch, UTC (see mktime(3)). (A
NetBSD extension.)
%t any white-space, including none.
%T the time as %H:%M:%S.
%u the day of the week as a decimal number, where Monday = 1. (A
NetBSD extension.)
%U the week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week)
as a decimal number [0,53]; leading zeros are permitted but not
required. All days in a year preceding the first Sunday are con‐
sidered to be in week 0.
%V the ISO 8601:1988 week number as a decimal number. If the week
(starting on Monday) that contains January 1 has more than three
days in the new year, then it is considered the first week of the
year. If it has fewer than four days in the new year, then it is
considered the last week of the previous year. Weeks are numbered
from 1 to 53. (A NetBSD extension.)
%w the weekday as a decimal number [0,6], with 0 representing Sunday;
leading zeros are permitted but not required.
%W the week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week)
as a decimal number [0,53]; leading zeros are permitted but not
required. All days in a year preceding the first Monday are con‐
sidered to be in week 0.
%x the date, using the locale's date format.
%X the time, using the locale's time format.
%y the year within the 20th century [69,99] or the 21st century
[0,68]; leading zeros are permitted but not required. If specified
in conjunction with %C, specifies the year [0,99] within that cen‐
tury.
%Y the year, including the century (i.e., 1996).
%z an ISO 8601 or RFC-2822 timezone specification. This is one of the
following: the offset from Coordinated Universal Time (‘UTC’) spec‐
ified as: “[+-]hhmm”, “[+-]hh:mm”, or “[+-]hh”; ‘UTC’ specified as:
“GMT” (‘Greenwich Mean Time’), “UT” (‘Universal Time’), or “Z”
(‘Zulu Time’); a three character US timezone specified as: “EDT”,
“EST”, “CDT”, “CST”, “MDT”, “MST”, “PDT”, or “PST”, with the first
letter standing for ‘Eastern’ (“E”), ‘Central’ (“C”), ‘Mountain’
(“M”) or ‘Pacific’ (“P”), and the second letter standing for
‘Daylight’ (“D” or summer) time or ‘Standard’ (“S”) time; a single
letter military timezone specified as: “A” through “I” and “K”
through “Y”. (A NetBSD extension.)
%Z timezone name or no characters when time zone information is
unavailable. (A NetBSD extension.)
%% matches a literal `%'. No argument is converted.
Modified conversion specifications
For compatibility, certain conversion specifications can be modified by
the E and O modifier characters to indicate that an alternative format or
specification should be used rather than the one normally used by the
unmodified conversion specification. As there are currently neither
alternative formats nor specifications supported by the system, the
behavior will be as if the unmodified conversion specification were used.
Case is ignored when matching string items in buf, such as month and
weekday names.
RETURN VALUES
If successful, the strptime() function returns a pointer to the character
following the last character parsed. Otherwise, a NULL pointer is
returned.
SEE ALSOctime(3), isspace(3), localtime(3), strftime(3), tm(3)STANDARDS
The strptime() function conforms to X/Open Portability Guide Issue 4
(“XPG4”).
BUGS
The %Z format specifier only accepts timezone abbreviations of the local
timezone, or the value “GMT”. This limitation is caused by the ambiguity
of overloaded timezone abbreviations, for example EST is both Eastern
Standard Time and Eastern Australia Summer Time.
BSD April 12, 2011 BSD
