EMC Legato NetWorker Commands Reference

nsr_getdate

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/types.h>

       time_t nsr_getdate(buf)
       char *buf;

DESCRIPTION

       The  nsr_getdate()  routine converts most common time specifications to
       standard UNIX format.  It takes a character string containing time  and
       date as an argumant and converts it to a time format.

       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 speci-
              fied, a 24-hour clock is used.  A tod may be specified  as  just
              hh  followed  by  a  meridian.  If no zone (for example, GMT) is
              specified, the current timezone, as  determined  by  the  second
              parameter, now, is assumed.

       date   A  date  is  a specific month and day, and possibly a year.  The
              acceptable 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 in the range 70 and 99, 1900 is added.  If
              a  year is in the range 00 and 30, 2000 is added.  The treatment
              of other years less than 100 is undefined.  If a number not fol-
              lowed  by  a day or relative time unit occurs, it will be inter-
              preted 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 nsr_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.  Nega-
              tive 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 coming 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 is processed and converted.  Using that time as the base,  day-of-
       week  specifications are added; last, relative specifications are used.
       If a date or day is specified, and no  absolute  or  relative  time  is
       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 become
       incorrect if provided times between midnight and 2:00 am  on  the  days
       that the time changes.

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

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