C Time Functions - C strftime

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Format time as string

Prototype

size_t strftime (char* ptr, size_t maxsize, const char* format,
                 const struct tm* timeptr ); 

Parameter

This function has the following parameter.

ptr

Pointer to the destination array for the resulting string.

maxsize

Maximum number of characters to be copied to ptr, including the terminating null-character.

format

Format stringThey all begin with a percentage % sign, and are:

specifier	Replaced by	Example
%a	Abbreviated weekday name	Thu
%A	Full weekday name	Thursday
%b	Abbreviated month name	Aug
%B	Full month name	August
%c	Date and time representation	Thu Jan 22 14:55:02 2015
%C	Year divided by 100 and truncated to integer (00-99)	20
%d	Day of the month, zero-padded (01-31)	22
%D	Short MM/DD/YY date, equivalent to %m/%d/%y	08/22/10
%e	Day of the month, space-padded ( 1-31)	22
%F	Short YYYY-MM-DD date, equivalent to %Y-%m-%d	2015-08-22
%g	Week-based year, last two digits (00-99)	01
%G	Week-based year	2015
%h	Abbreviated month name * (same as %b)	Aug
%H	Hour in 24h format (00-22)	14
%I	Hour in 12h format (01-12)	02
%j	Day of the year (001-366)	225
%m	Month as a decimal number (01-12)	08
%M	Minute (00-59)	55
%n	New-line character ('\n')
%p	AM or PM designation	PM
%r	12-hour clock time *	02:55:02 pm
%R	24-hour HH:MM time, equivalent to %H:%M	14:55
%S	Second (00-61)	02
%t	Horizontal-tab character ('\t')
%T	ISO 8601 time format (HH:MM:SS), equivalent to %H:%M:%S	14:55:02
%u	ISO 8601 weekday as number with Monday as 1 (1-7)	4
%U	Week number with the first Sunday as the first day of week one (00-53)	33
%V	ISO 8601 week number (00-53)	34
%w	Weekday as a decimal number with Sunday as 0 (0-6)	4
%W	Week number with the first Monday as the first day of week one (00-53)	34
%x	Date representation *	08/22/01
%X	Time representation *	14:55:02
%y	Year, last two digits (00-99)	01
%Y	Year	2015
%z	ISO 8601 offset from UTC in timezone (1 minute=1, 1 hour=100)	+100
%Z	Timezone name or abbreviation	CDT
%%	A % sign	%

timeptr

Pointer to a tm structure.

Return

The function returns the total number of characters copied to ptr on success.

Otherwise, it returns zero.

Example

#include <stdio.h> /* puts */
#include <time.h> /* time_t, struct tm, time, localtime, strftime */
//from   w ww.j av  a 2 s. com
int main (){
  time_t rawtime;
  struct tm * timeinfo;
  char buffer [80];

  time (&rawtime);
  timeinfo = localtime (&rawtime);

  strftime (buffer,80,"Now it's %I:%M%p.",timeinfo);
  puts (buffer);

  return 0;
} 

The code above generates the following result.

Example 2

#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <locale.h>
 /*from  www  . j  av  a2  s .c o  m*/
int main(void)
{
    char buff[70];
    struct tm my_time = { .tm_year=112, // = year 2012
                          .tm_mon=9,    // = 10th month
                          .tm_mday=9,   // = 9th day
                          .tm_hour=8,   // = 8 hours
                          .tm_min=10,   // = 10 minutes
                          .tm_sec=20    // = 20 secs
    };
 
    if (strftime(buff, sizeof buff, "%A %c", &my_time)) {
        puts(buff);
    } else {
        puts("strftime failed");
    }
 
    setlocale(LC_TIME, "el_GR.utf8");
 
    if (strftime(buff, sizeof buff, "%A %c", &my_time)) {
        puts(buff);
    } else {
        puts("strftime failed");
    }
}

The code above generates the following result.

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