1curl_getdate(3) libcurl Manual curl_getdate(3)
2
6 curl_getdate - Convert a date string to number of seconds
7
9 #include <curl/curl.h>
10 time_t curl_getdate(char *datestring, time_t *now);
12
14 curl_getdate(3) returns the number of seconds since the Epoch, January
15 1st 1970 00:00:00 in the UTC time zone, for the date and time that the
16 datestring parameter specifies. The now parameter is not used, pass a
17 NULL there.
18 This function works with valid dates and does not always detect and re‐
20 ject wrong dates, such as February 30.
21
24 A "date" is a string containing several items separated by whitespace.
25 The order of the items is immaterial. A date string may contain many
26 flavors of items:
27 calendar date items
29 Can be specified several ways. Month names can only be three-
30 letter English abbreviations, numbers can be zero-prefixed and
31 the year may use 2 or 4 digits. Examples: 06 Nov 1994,
32 06-Nov-94 and Nov-94 6.
33 time of the day items
35 This string specifies the time on a given day. You must specify
36 it with 6 digits with two colons: HH:MM:SS. To not include the
37 time in a date string, will make the function assume 00:00:00.
38 Example: 18:19:21.
39 time zone items
41 Specifies international time zone. There are a few acronyms
42 supported, but in general you should instead use the specific
43 relative time compared to UTC. Supported formats include:
44 -1200, MST, +0100.
45 day of the week items
47 Specifies a day of the week. Days of the week may be spelled
48 out in full (using English): `Sunday', `Monday', etc or they
49 may be abbreviated to their first three letters. This is usu‐
50 ally not info that adds anything.
51 pure numbers
53 If a decimal number of the form YYYYMMDD appears, then YYYY is
54 read as the year, MM as the month number and DD as the day of
55 the month, for the specified calendar date.
56
58 time_t t;
59 t = curl_getdate("Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT", NULL);
60 t = curl_getdate("Sunday, 06-Nov-94 08:49:37 GMT", NULL);
61 t = curl_getdate("Sun Nov 6 08:49:37 1994", NULL);
62 t = curl_getdate("06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT", NULL);
63 t = curl_getdate("06-Nov-94 08:49:37 GMT", NULL);
64 t = curl_getdate("Nov 6 08:49:37 1994", NULL);
65 t = curl_getdate("06 Nov 1994 08:49:37", NULL);
66 t = curl_getdate("06-Nov-94 08:49:37", NULL);
67 t = curl_getdate("1994 Nov 6 08:49:37", NULL);
68 t = curl_getdate("GMT 08:49:37 06-Nov-94 Sunday", NULL);
69 t = curl_getdate("94 6 Nov 08:49:37", NULL);
70 t = curl_getdate("1994 Nov 6", NULL);
71 t = curl_getdate("06-Nov-94", NULL);
72 t = curl_getdate("Sun Nov 6 94", NULL);
73 t = curl_getdate("1994.Nov.6", NULL);
74 t = curl_getdate("Sun/Nov/6/94/GMT", NULL);
75 t = curl_getdate("Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 CET", NULL);
76 t = curl_getdate("06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 EST", NULL);
77 t = curl_getdate("Sun, 12 Sep 2004 15:05:58 -0700", NULL);
78 t = curl_getdate("Sat, 11 Sep 2004 21:32:11 +0200", NULL);
79 t = curl_getdate("20040912 15:05:58 -0700", NULL);
80 t = curl_getdate("20040911 +0200", NULL);
81
83 This parser handles date formats specified in RFC 822 (including the
84 update in RFC 1123) using time zone name or time zone delta and RFC 850
85 (obsoleted by RFC 1036) and ANSI C's asctime() format.
86 These formats are the only ones RFC 7231 says HTTP applications may
88 use.
89
91 Always
92
94 This function returns -1 when it fails to parse the date string. Other‐
95 wise it returns the number of seconds as described.
96 On systems with a signed 32 bit time_t: if the year is larger than 2037
98 or less than 1903, this function will return -1.
99 On systems with an unsigned 32 bit time_t: if the year is larger than
101 2106 or less than 1970, this function will return -1.
102 On systems with 64 bit time_t: if the year is less than 1583, this
104 function will return -1. (The Gregorian calendar was first introduced
105 1582 so no "real" dates in this way of doing dates existed before
106 then.)
107
109 curl_easy_escape(3), curl_easy_unescape(3), CURLOPT_TIMECONDITION(3),
110 CURLOPT_TIMEVALUE(3)
111libcurl 8.0.1 January 02, 2023 curl_getdate(3)