| .\" You can view this file with: |
| .\" nroff -man [file] |
| .\" $Id$ |
| .\" |
| .TH curl_getdate 3 "5 March 2001" "libcurl 7.0" "libcurl Manual" |
| .SH NAME |
| curl_getdate - Convert an date in a ASCII string to number of seconds since |
| January 1, 1970 |
| .SH SYNOPSIS |
| .B #include <curl/curl.h> |
| .sp |
| .BI "time_t curl_getdate(char *" datestring ", time_t *"now" ); |
| .ad |
| .SH DESCRIPTION |
| This function returns the number of seconds since January 1st 1970, for the |
| date and time that the |
| .I datestring |
| parameter specifies. The |
| .I now |
| parameter is there and should hold the current time to allow the datestring to |
| specify relative dates/times. Read further in the date string parser section |
| below. |
| .SH PARSING DATES AND TIMES |
| A "date" is a string, possibly empty, containing many items separated by |
| whitespace. The whitespace may be omitted when no ambiguity arises. The |
| empty string means the beginning of today (i.e., midnight). Order of the |
| items is immaterial. A date string may contain many flavors of items: |
| .TP 0.8i |
| .B calendar date items |
| This can be specified in a number of different ways. Including 1970-09-17, 70-9-17, 70-09-17, 9/17/72, 24 September 1972, 24 Sept 72, 24 Sep 72, Sep 24, 1972, 24-sep-72, 24sep72. |
| The year can also be omitted, for example: 9/17 or "sep 17". |
| .TP |
| .B time of the day items |
| This string specifies the time on a given day. Syntax supported includes: |
| 18:19:0, 18:19, 6:19pm, 18:19-0500 (for specifying the time zone as well). |
| .TP |
| .B time zone items |
| Specifies international time zone. There are a few acronyms supported, but in |
| general you should instead use the specific realtive time compared to |
| UTC. Supported formats include: -1200, MST, +0100. |
| .TP |
| .B day of the week items |
| Specifies a day of the week. If this is mentioned alone it means that day of |
| the week in the future. |
| |
| Days of the week may be spelled out in full: `Sunday', `Monday', etc or they |
| may be abbreviated to their first three letters, optionally followed by a |
| period. The special abbreviations `Tues' for `Tuesday', `Wednes' for |
| `Wednesday' and `Thur' or `Thurs' for `Thursday' are also allowed. |
| |
| A number may precede a day of the week item to move forward supplementary |
| weeks. It is best used in expression like `third monday'. In this context, |
| `last DAY' or `next DAY' is also acceptable; they move one week before or |
| after the day that DAY by itself would represent. |
| .TP |
| .B relative items |
| A relative item adjusts a date (or the current date if none) forward or |
| backward. Example syntax includes: "1 year", "1 year ago", "2 days", "4 |
| weeks". |
| |
| The string `tomorrow' is worth one day in the future (equivalent to `day'), |
| the string `yesterday' is worth one day in the past (equivalent to `day ago'). |
| .TP |
| .B pure numbers |
| If the decimal number is of the form YYYYMMDD and no other calendar date item |
| appears before it in the date string, then YYYY is read as the year, MM as the |
| month number and DD as the day of the month, for the specified calendar date. |
| .PP |
| .SH RETURN VALUE |
| This function returns zero when it fails to parse the date string. Otherwise |
| it returns the number of seconds as described. |
| .SH AUTHORS |
| Originally written by Steven M. Bellovin <smb@research.att.com> while at the |
| University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Later tweaked by a couple of |
| people on Usenet. Completely overhauled by Rich $alz <rsalz@bbn.com> and Jim |
| Berets <jberets@bbn.com> in August, 1990. |
| .SH "SEE ALSO" |
| .BR |
| .SH BUGS |
| Surely there are some, you tell me! |