strptime3
Parse date and time string
Usage
#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);
Library
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
Overview
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 structure 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 identical 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 conversions 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).
Releases
155 releases since Mac OS X 10.2; the text changed 5 times.