curl_getdate(3)

curl_getdate(3)          libcurl Manual           curl_getdate(3)

NAME

     curl_getdate - Convert an date string to number  of  seconds
     since January 1, 1970

SYNOPSIS

     #include <curl/curl.h>

     time_t curl_getdate(char *datestring, time_t *now );

DESCRIPTION

     This function returns the number of  seconds  since  January
     1st  1970  in  the UTC time zone, for the date and time that
     the datestring parameter specifies. The now parameter is not
     used, pass a NULL there.

     NOTE: This function was rewritten for the 7.12.2 release and
     this  documentation covers the functionality of the new one.
     The new one is not feature-complete with the  old  one,  but
     most  of  the formats supported by the new one was supported
     by the old too.

PARSING DATES AND TIMES

     A "date" is a string containing several items  separated  by
     whitespace.  The  order  of the items is immaterial.  A date
     string may contain many flavors of items:

     calendar date items
             Can be specified several ways. Month names can  only
             be three-letter english abbrivations, numbers can be
             zero-prefixed and the year may use 2  or  4  digits.
             Examples: 06 Nov 1994, 06-Nov-94 and Nov-94 6.

     time of the day items
             This string specifies the time on a given  day.  You
             must  specify  it  with  6  digits  with two colons:
             HH:MM:SS. To not include the time in a date  string,
             will  make  the  function  assume 00:00:00. Example:
             18:19:21.

     time zone items
             Specifies international time zone. There are  a  few
             acronyms   supported,  but  in  general  you  should
             instead use the specific relative time  compared  to
             UTC. Supported formats include: -1200, MST, +0100.

     day of the week items
             Specifies a day of the week. Days of the week may be
             spelled out in full (using english): `Sunday', `Mon-
             day', etc or they may be abbreviated to their  first
             three  letters.  This  is usually not info that adds
             anything.

libcurl 7.0         Last change: 12 Aug 2005                    1

curl_getdate(3)          libcurl Manual           curl_getdate(3)

     pure numbers
             If a decimal number of the  form  YYYYMMDD  appears,
             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.

EXAMPLES

     Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT
     Sunday, 06-Nov-94 08:49:37 GMT
     Sun Nov  6 08:49:37 1994
     06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT
     06-Nov-94 08:49:37 GMT
     Nov  6 08:49:37 1994
     06 Nov 1994 08:49:37
     06-Nov-94 08:49:37
     1994 Nov 6 08:49:37
     GMT 08:49:37 06-Nov-94 Sunday
     94 6 Nov 08:49:37
     1994 Nov 6
     06-Nov-94
     Sun Nov 6 94
     1994.Nov.6
     Sun/Nov/6/94/GMT
     Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 CET
     06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 EST
     Sun, 12 Sep 2004 15:05:58 -0700
     Sat, 11 Sep 2004 21:32:11 +0200
     20040912 15:05:58 -0700
     20040911 +0200

STANDARDS

     This parser was written to handle date formats specified  in
     RFC  822  (including the update in RFC 1123) using time zone
     name or time zone delta and RFC 850 (obsoleted by RFC  1036)
     and  ANSI  C's  asctime() format. These formats are the only
     ones RFC2616 says HTTP applications may use.

RETURN VALUE

     This function returns -1 when it fails  to  parse  the  date
     string.  Otherwise  it  returns  the  number  of  seconds as
     described.

     If the year is larger than  2037  on  systems  with  32  bit
     time_t,  this function will return 0x7fffffff (since that is
     the largest possible signed 32 bit number).

     Having a 64 bit time_t is not a guarantee that dates  beyond
     03:14:07  UTC,  January  19, 2038 will work fine. On systems
     with  a  64  bit  time_t  but  with  a  crippled   mktime(),
     curl_getdate will return -1 in this case.

libcurl 7.0         Last change: 12 Aug 2005                    2

curl_getdate(3)          libcurl Manual           curl_getdate(3)

REWRITE

     The former version of this function was built with yacc  and
     was  not only very large, it was also never quite understood
     and it wasn't possible to build  with  non-GNU  tools  since
     only GNU Bison could make it thread-safe!

     The rewrite was done for 7.12.2. The new one is much smaller
     and use simpler code.

libcurl 7.0         Last change: 12 Aug 2005                    3