NSR_GETDATE(3)NSR_GETDATE(3)NAMEnsr_getdate - convert time and date from ASCII
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h>
time_t nsr_getdate(buf)
char *buf;
DESCRIPTION
The nsr_getdate() routine converts most common time specifications to
standard UNIX format. It takes a character string containing time and
date as an argumant and converts it to a time format.
The character string consists of zero or more specifications of the
following form:
tod A tod is a time of day, which is of the form hh[:mm[:ss]] (or
hhmm) [meridian] [zone]. If no meridian - am or pm - is speci‐
fied, a 24-hour clock is used. A tod may be specified as just
hh followed by a meridian. If no zone (for example, GMT) is
specified, the current timezone, as determined by the second
parameter, now, is assumed.
date A date is a specific month and day, and possibly a year. The
acceptable formats are mm/dd[/yy] and monthname dd[, yy]. If
omitted, the year defaults to the current year. If a year is
specified as a number in the range 70 and 99, 1900 is added. If
a year is in the range 00 and 30, 2000 is added. The treatment
of other years less than 100 is undefined. If a number not fol‐
lowed by a day or relative time unit occurs, it will be inter‐
preted as a year if a tod, monthname, and dd have already been
specified; otherwise, it will be treated as a tod. This rule
allows the output from date(1) or ctime(3) to be passed as input
to nsr_getdate.
day A day of the week may be specified; the current day will be used
if appropriate. A day may be preceded by a number, indicating
which instance of that day is desired; the default is 1. Nega‐
tive numbers indicate times past. Some symbolic numbers are
accepted: last, next, and the ordinals first through twelfth
(second is ambiguous, and is not accepted as an ordinal number).
The symbolic number next is equivalent to 2; thus, next monday
refers not to the immediately coming Monday, but to the one a
week later.
relative time
Specifications relative to the current time are also accepted.
The format is [number] unit; acceptable units are decade, year,
quarter, month, fortnight, week, day, hour, minute, and second.
The actual date is formed as follows: first, any absolute date and/or
time is processed and converted. Using that time as the base, day-of-
week specifications are added; last, relative specifications are used.
If a date or day is specified, and no absolute or relative time is
given, midnight is used. Finally, a correction is applied so that the
correct hour of the day is produced after allowing for daylight savings
time differences.
nsr_getdate accepts most common abbreviations for days, months, and so
forth; in particular, it will recognize them with upper or lower case
first letter, and will recognize three-letter abbreviations for any of
them, with or without a trailing period. Units, such as weeks, may be
specified in the singular or plural. Timezone and meridian values may
be in upper or lower case, and with or without periods.
SEE ALSOctime(3), date(1), ftime(3c), localtime(2), time(2)BUGS
The grammar and scanner are rather primitive; certain desirable and
unambiguous constructions are not accepted. Worse yet, the meaning of
some legal phrases is not what is expected; next week is identical to 2
weeks.
The daylight savings time correction is not perfect, and can become
incorrect if provided times between midnight and 2:00 am on the days
that the time changes.
Because localtime(2) accepts an old-style time format without zone
information, passing nsr_getdate a current time containing a different
zone will probably fail.
NetWorker 7.3.2 Aug 23, 06 NSR_GETDATE(3)