parsedate(3) - NetBSD Manual Pages

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PARSEDATE(3)            NetBSD 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 or next 1, second is unused so that it is not confused with
     ``seconds'', third = 3, fourth = 4, fifth = 5, sixth = 6, seventh = 7,
     eighth = 8, ninth = 9, tenth = 10, eleventh = 11, twelfth = 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)


BUGS

     The parsedate function is not re-entrant or thread-safe.


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.

NetBSD 5.2                       Aug 28, 2010                       NetBSD 5.2