GETDATE(3)                  Legato NetWorker 3.0                  GETDATE(3)


NAME
       getdate - convert time and date from ASCII

SYNOPSIS
       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <sys/timeb.h>

       time_t getdate(buf, now)
       char *buf;
       struct timeb *now;

DESCRIPTION
       Getdate is a routine that converts most common time specifications to
       standard UNIX format.  The first argument is a character string con­
       taining the time and date; the second is the assumed current time
       (used for relative specifications); if NULL is passed as the second
       argument, ftime(3C) is used to obtain the current time and timezone.

       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 spec­
              ified, a 24-hour clock is used.  A tod may be specified as
              just hh followed by a meridian.


date   A date is a specific month and day, and possibly a year.  The accept­
       able 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
       less than 100, 1900 is added.  If a number not followed by a day or
       relative time unit occurs, it will be interpreted 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 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.  Negative 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 com­
       ing 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 year, month, fortnight,
       week, day, hour, minute, and second.

The actual date is formed as follows:  first, any absolute date and/or time



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GETDATE(3)                  Legato NetWorker 3.0                  GETDATE(3)


is processed and converted.  Using that time as the base, day-of-week speci­
fications 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.

Getdate accepts most common abbreviations for days, months, etc.; in partic­
ular, 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 ALSO
       ctime(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 get con­
       fused if handed times between midnight and 2:00 am on the days that
       the reckoning changes.

       Because localtime(2) accepts an old-style time format without zone
       information, passing getdate a current time containing a different
       zone will probably fail.




























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