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curl_getdate(3) 	    Library Functions Manual		 curl_getdate(3)

NAME
     curl_getdate - convert date string to number of seconds

SYNOPSIS
     #include <curl/curl.h>

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

DESCRIPTION
     curl_getdate(3)  returns the number of seconds since the Epoch, January 1st
     1970 00:00:00 in the UTC time zone, for the date and  time  that  the  dat-
     estring  parameter  specifies.  The  now parameter is not used, pass a NULL
     there.

     This function works with valid dates and does not always detect and  reject
     wrong dates, such as February 30.

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 abbreviations, 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.

	    If	the  year appears to be below 100 (two-digit), any year after 70
	    is assumed to be 1900 + the given year. All others are  2000  +  the
	    given year.

     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. If there is no  time  given
	    in a provided date string, 00:00:00 is assumed. Example: 18:19:21.

     time zone items
	    Specifies  international  time  zone.  There are a few acronyms sup-
	    ported, 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', 'Monday', etc or they may be  abbre-
	    viated  to	their first three letters. This is usually not info that
	    adds anything.

     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.

PROTOCOLS
     This functionality affects all supported protocols

EXAMPLE
     int main(void)
     {
       time_t t;
       t = curl_getdate("Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("Sunday, 06-Nov-94 08:49:37 GMT", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("Sun Nov  6 08:49:37 1994", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("06-Nov-94 08:49:37 GMT", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("Nov  6 08:49:37 1994", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("06 Nov 1994 08:49:37", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("06-Nov-94 08:49:37", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("1994 Nov 6 08:49:37", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("GMT 08:49:37 06-Nov-94 Sunday", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("94 6 Nov 08:49:37", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("1994 Nov 6", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("06-Nov-94", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("Sun Nov 6 94", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("1994.Nov.6", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("Sun/Nov/6/94/GMT", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 CET", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 EST", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("Sun, 12 Sep 2004 15:05:58 -0700", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("Sat, 11 Sep 2004 21:32:11 +0200", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("20040912 15:05:58 -0700", NULL);
       t = curl_getdate("20040911 +0200", NULL);
     }

STANDARDS
     This parser handles 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 RFC 7231 says HTTP applications may use.

AVAILABILITY
     Added in curl 7.1

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

     On  systems with a signed 32-bit time_t: if the year is larger than 2037 or
     less than 1903, this function returns -1.

     On systems with an unsigned 32-bit time_t: if the year is larger than  2106
     or less than 1970, this function returns -1.

     On systems with 64-bit time_t: if the year is less than 1583, this function
     returns  -1. (The Gregorian calendar was first introduced 1582 so no "real"
     dates in this way of doing dates existed before then.)

SEE ALSO
     CURLOPT_TIMECONDITION(3),	  CURLOPT_TIMEVALUE(3),     curl_easy_escape(3),
     curl_easy_unescape(3)

libcurl 			   2026-06-11			 curl_getdate(3)

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