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Name

Synopsis

#include <time.h>
size_t strftime(char *s, size_t max, const char *format,              
 const struct tm *tm);

Description

The format specification is a null-terminated string and may contain special character sequences called conversion specifications, each of which is introduced by a aq%aq character and terminated by some other character known as a conversion specifier character. All other character sequences are ordinary character sequences.

The characters of ordinary character sequences (including the null byte) are copied verbatim from format to s. However, the characters of conversion specifications are replaced as follows:

%a

The abbreviated name of the day of the week according to the current locale.

%A

The full name of the day of the week according to the current locale.

%b

The abbreviated month name according to the current locale.

%B

The full month name according to the current locale.

%c

The preferred date and time representation for the current locale.

%C

The century number (year/100) as a 2-digit integer. (SU)

%d

The day of the month as a decimal number (range 01 to 31).

%D

Equivalent to %m/%d/%y. (Yecch--for Americans only. Americans should note that in other countries %d/%m/%y is rather common. This means that in international context this format is ambiguous and should not be used.) (SU)

%e

Like %d, the day of the month as a decimal number, but a leading zero is replaced by a space. (SU)

%E

Modifier: use alternative format, see below. (SU)

%F

Equivalent to %Y-%m-%d (the ISO 8601 date format). (C99)

%G

The ISO 8601 week-based year (see NOTES) with century as a decimal number. The 4-digit year corresponding to the ISO week number (see %V). This has the same format and value as %Y, except that if the ISO week number belongs to the previous or next year, that year is used instead. (TZ)

%g

Like %G, but without century, that is, with a 2-digit year (00-99). (TZ)

%h

Equivalent to %b. (SU)

%H

The hour as a decimal number using a 24-hour clock (range 00 to 23).

%I

The hour as a decimal number using a 12-hour clock (range 01 to 12).

%j

The day of the year as a decimal number (range 001 to 366).

%k

The hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number (range 0 to 23); single digits are preceded by a blank. (See also %H.) (TZ)

%l

The hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number (range 1 to 12); single digits are preceded by a blank. (See also %I.) (TZ)

%m

The month as a decimal number (range 01 to 12).

%M

The minute as a decimal number (range 00 to 59).

%n

A newline character. (SU)

%O

Modifier: use alternative format, see below. (SU)

%p

Either "AM" or "PM" according to the given time value, or the corresponding strings for the current locale. Noon is treated as "PM" and midnight as "AM".

%P

Like %p but in lowercase: "am" or "pm" or a corresponding string for the current locale. (GNU)

%r

The time in a.m. or p.m. notation. In the POSIX locale this is equivalent to %I:%M:%S %p. (SU)

%R

The time in 24-hour notation (%H:%M). (SU) For a version including the seconds, see %T below.

%s

The number of seconds since the Epoch, 1970-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 (UTC). (TZ)

%S

The second as a decimal number (range 00 to 60). (The range is up to 60 to allow for occasional leap seconds.)

%t

A tab character. (SU)

%T

The time in 24-hour notation (%H:%M:%S). (SU)

%u

The day of the week as a decimal, range 1 to 7, Monday being 1. See also %w. (SU)

%U

The week number of the current year as a decimal number, range 00 to 53, starting with the first Sunday as the first day of week 01. See also %V and %W.

%V

The ISO 8601 week number (see NOTES) of the current year as a decimal number, range 01 to 53, where week 1 is the first week that has at least 4 days in the new year. See also %U and %W. (SU)

%w

The day of the week as a decimal, range 0 to 6, Sunday being 0. See also %u.

%W

The week number of the current year as a decimal number, range 00 to 53, starting with the first Monday as the first day of week 01.

%x

The preferred date representation for the current locale without the time.

%X

The preferred time representation for the current locale without the date.

%y

The year as a decimal number without a century (range 00 to 99).

%Y

The year as a decimal number including the century.

%z

The +hhmm or -hhmm numeric timezone (that is, the hour and minute offset from UTC). (SU)

%Z

The timezone name or abbreviation.

%+

The date and time in date(1) format. (TZ) (Not supported in glibc2.)

%%

A literal aq%aq character.

Some conversion specifications can be modified by preceding the conversion specifier character by the E or O modifier to indicate that an alternative format should be used. If the alternative format or specification does not exist for the current locale, the behavior will be as if the unmodified conversion specification were used. (SU) The Single UNIX Specification mentions %Ec, %EC, %Ex, %EX, %Ey, %EY, %Od, %Oe, %OH, %OI, %Om, %OM, %OS, %Ou, %OU, %OV, %Ow, %OW, %Oy, where the effect of the O modifier is to use alternative numeric symbols (say, roman numerals), and that of the E modifier is to use a locale-dependent alternative representation.

The broken-down time structure tm is defined in <time.h>. See also ctime(3) .

Return Value

Note that the return value 0 does not necessarily indicate an error. For example, in many locales %p yields an empty string. An empty format string will likewise yield an empty string.

Environment

Conforming to

In SUSv2, the %S specifier allowed a range of 00 to 61, to allow for the theoretical possibility of a minute that included a double leap second (there never has been such a minute).

Notes

ISO 8601 week dates

Glibc notes

The following flag characters are permitted:

_

(underscore) Pad a numeric result string with spaces.

-

(dash) Do not pad a numeric result string.

Pad a numeric result string with zeros even if the conversion specifier character uses space-padding by default.

^

Convert alphabetic characters in result string to uppercase.

#

Swap the case of the result string. (This flag works only with certain conversion specifier characters, and of these, it is only really useful with %Z.)

An optional decimal width specifier may follow the (possibly absent) flag. If the natural size of the field is smaller than this width, then the result string is padded (on the left) to the specified width.

Bugs

Some buggy versions of gcc(1) complain about the use of %c: warning: ‘%c’ yields only last 2 digits of year in some locales. Of course programmers are encouraged to use %c, it gives the preferred date and time representation. One meets all kinds of strange obfuscations to circumvent this gcc(1) problem. A relatively clean one is to add an intermediate function

size_t
my_strftime(char *s, size_t max, const char *fmt,
            const struct tm *tm)
{
    return strftime(s, max, fmt, tm);
}

Nowadays, gcc(1) provides the -Wno-format-y2k option to prevent the warning, so that the above workaround is no longer required.

Example

"%a, %d %b %Y %T %z"

RFC 822-compliant date format (with an English locale for %a and %b)

"%a, %d %b %y %T %z"

Example program

Some examples of the result string produced by the glibc implementation of strftime() are as follows:

$ ./a.out aq%maqResult string is "11"
$ ./a.out aq%5maqResult string is "00011"
$ ./a.out aq%_5maqResult string is "   11"

Program source

#include <time.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    char outstr[200];
    time_t t;
    struct tm *tmp;
    t = time(NULL);
    tmp = localtime(&t);
    if (tmp == NULL) {
        perror("localtime");
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
    if (strftime(outstr, sizeof(outstr), argv[1], tmp) == 0) {
        fprintf(stderr, "strftime returned 0");
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
    printf("Result string is \"%s\"\n", outstr);
    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

See Also

Colophon

Table of Contents

• Name
• Synopsis
• Description
• Return Value
• Environment
• Conforming to
• Notes
• ISO 8601 week dates
• Glibc notes
• Bugs
• Example
• Example program
• Program source
• See Also
• Colophon