1curl_getdate(3)                 libcurl Manual                 curl_getdate(3)
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NAME

6       curl_getdate - Convert a date string to number of seconds since January
7       1, 1970
8

SYNOPSIS

10       #include <curl/curl.h>
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12       time_t curl_getdate(char *datestring, time_t *now );
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DESCRIPTION

15       This function returns the number of seconds since January 1st  1970  in
16       the  UTC time zone, for the date and time that the datestring parameter
17       specifies. The now parameter is not used, pass a NULL there.
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19       NOTE: This function was rewritten for the 7.12.2 release and this docu‐
20       mentation  covers  the functionality of the new one. The new one is not
21       feature-complete with the old one, but most of the formats supported by
22       the new one was supported by the old too.
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PARSING DATES AND TIMES

25       A  "date" is a string containing several items separated by whitespace.
26       The order of the items is immaterial.  A date string may  contain  many
27       flavors of items:
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29       calendar date items
30               Can  be  specified several ways. Month names can only be three-
31               letter english abbreviations, numbers can be zero-prefixed  and
32               the  year  may  use  2  or  4  digits.   Examples: 06 Nov 1994,
33               06-Nov-94 and Nov-94 6.
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35       time of the day items
36               This string specifies the time on a given day. You must specify
37               it  with 6 digits with two colons: HH:MM:SS. To not include the
38               time in a date string, will make the function assume  00:00:00.
39               Example: 18:19:21.
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41       time zone items
42               Specifies  international  time  zone.  There are a few acronyms
43               supported, but in general you should instead use  the  specific
44               relative  time  compared  to  UTC.  Supported  formats include:
45               -1200, MST, +0100.
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47       day of the week items
48               Specifies a day of the week. Days of the week  may  be  spelled
49               out  in  full  (using english): `Sunday', `Monday', etc or they
50               may be abbreviated to their first three letters. This  is  usu‐
51               ally not info that adds anything.
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53       pure numbers
54               If  a decimal number of the form YYYYMMDD appears, then YYYY is
55               read as the year, MM as the month number and DD as the  day  of
56               the month, for the specified calendar date.
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EXAMPLES

59       Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT
60       Sunday, 06-Nov-94 08:49:37 GMT
61       Sun Nov  6 08:49:37 1994
62       06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT
63       06-Nov-94 08:49:37 GMT
64       Nov  6 08:49:37 1994
65       06 Nov 1994 08:49:37
66       06-Nov-94 08:49:37
67       1994 Nov 6 08:49:37
68       GMT 08:49:37 06-Nov-94 Sunday
69       94 6 Nov 08:49:37
70       1994 Nov 6
71       06-Nov-94
72       Sun Nov 6 94
73       1994.Nov.6
74       Sun/Nov/6/94/GMT
75       Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 CET
76       06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 EST
77       Sun, 12 Sep 2004 15:05:58 -0700
78       Sat, 11 Sep 2004 21:32:11 +0200
79       20040912 15:05:58 -0700
80       20040911 +0200
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STANDARDS

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

90       This function returns -1 when it fails to parse the date string. Other‐
91       wise it returns the number of seconds as described.
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93       If the year is larger than 2037 on systems with  32  bit  time_t,  this
94       function  will  return  0x7fffffff  (since that is the largest possible
95       signed 32 bit number).
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97       Having a 64 bit time_t is not a guarantee that  dates  beyond  03:14:07
98       UTC,  January  19, 2038 will work fine. On systems with a 64 bit time_t
99       but with a crippled mktime(), curl_getdate will return -1 in this case.
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REWRITE

102       The former version of this function was built with  yacc  and  was  not
103       only  very large, it was also never quite understood and it wasn't pos‐
104       sible to build with non-GNU tools since only GNU Bison  could  make  it
105       thread-safe!
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107       The  rewrite  was done for 7.12.2. The new one is much smaller and uses
108       simpler code.
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112libcurl 7.0                       12 Aug 2005                  curl_getdate(3)
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