STRPTIME(3)              BSD Library Functions Manual              STRPTIME(3)

NAME
     strptime, strptime_l -- parse date and time string

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <time.h>

     char *
     strptime(const char * restrict buf, const char * restrict format,
         struct tm * restrict timeptr);

     #include <time.h>
     #include <xlocale.h>

     char *
     strptime_l(const char * restrict buf, const char * restrict format,
         struct tm * restrict timeptr, locale_t loc);

DESCRIPTION
     The strptime() function parses the string in the buffer buf according to
     the string pointed to by format, and fills in the elements of the struc-
     ture pointed to by timeptr.  The resulting values will be relative to the
     local time zone.  Thus, it can be considered the reverse operation of
     strftime(3).  The strptime_l() function does the same as strptime(), but
     takes an explicit locale rather than using the current locale.

     The format string consists of zero or more conversion specifications and
     ordinary characters.  All ordinary characters are matched exactly with
     the buffer, where white space in the format string will match any amount
     of white space in the buffer.  All conversion specifications are identi-
     cal to those described in strftime(3).

     Two-digit year values, including formats %y and %D, are now interpreted
     as beginning at 1969 per POSIX requirements.  Years 69-00 are interpreted
     in the 20th century (1969-2000), years 01-68 in the 21st century
     (2001-2068).  The %U and %W format specifiers accept any value within the
     range 00 to 53.

     If the format string does not contain enough conversion specifications to
     completely specify the resulting struct tm, the unspecified members of
     timeptr are left untouched.  For example, if format is ``%H:%M:%S'', only
     tm_hour, tm_sec and tm_min will be modified.  If time relative to today
     is desired, initialize the timeptr structure with today's date before
     passing it to strptime().

RETURN VALUES
     Upon successful completion, strptime() returns the pointer to the first
     character in buf that has not been required to satisfy the specified con-
     versions in format.  It returns NULL if one of the conversions failed.
     strptime_l() returns the same values as strptime().

LEGACY DESCRIPTION
     In legacy mode, the %Y format specifier expects exactly 4 digits (leaving
     any trailing digits for the next specifier).

SEE ALSO
     date(1), scanf(3), strftime(3), xlocale(3)

HISTORY
     The strptime() function appeared in FreeBSD 3.0.

AUTHORS
     The strptime() function has been contributed by Powerdog Industries.

     This man page was written by J"org Wunsch.

BUGS
     Both the %e and %l format specifiers may incorrectly scan one too many
     digits if the intended values comprise only a single digit and that digit
     is followed immediately by another digit.  Both specifiers accept zero-
     padded values, even though they are both defined as taking unpadded val-
     ues.

     The %p format specifier has no effect unless it is parsed after hour-
     related specifiers.  Specifying %l without %p will produce undefined
     results.  Note that 12AM (ante meridiem) is taken as midnight and 12PM
     (post meridiem) is taken as noon.

     The %Z format specifier only accepts time zone abbreviations of the local
     time zone, or the value "GMT".  This limitation is because of ambiguity
     due to of the over loading of time zone abbreviations.  One such example
     is EST which is both Eastern Standard Time and Eastern Australia Summer
     Time.

     The strptime() function does not correctly handle multibyte characters in
     the format argument.

BSD                             October 2, 2014                            BSD