ctime

Synopsis

#include <time.h>

char *ctime(const time_t *clock);

char *ctime_r(const time_t *clock, char *buf);

Description

The ctime() function converts the time pointed to by clock, representing time in seconds since the Epoch, to local time in the form of a string. It is equivalent to:

asctime(localtime(clock)).

Arguments: clock - time in seconds since the Epoch. buf - the buffer to which the string representing local time is put.

The ctime() function returns value in an array of characters. It is not thread-safe.

The ctime_r() function converts the calendar time pointed to by clock to local time in exactly the same form as ctime() and puts the string into the 32 bytes array pointed to by buf. It returns buf.

Unlike ctime(), the ctime_r() function does not set tzname.

These functions are included only for compatibility with older implementations. They have undefined behavior if the resulting string is too long, so the use of them is discouraged. Also, these functions do not support localized date and time formats. To avoid these problems, applications should use strftime() to generate strings from broken-down times.

Values for the broken-down time structure can be obtained by calling gmtime() or localtime().

The ctime_r() function is thread-safe and returns values in a user-supplied buffer instead of possibly using a static data area that may be overwritten by each call.

Attempts to use ctime() or ctime_r() for times before the Epoch or for times beyond the year 9999 produce undefined results. Refer to asctime().

These functions may be removed in a future version.

Return value

The ctime() function returns the pointer returned by asctime() with that broken-down time as an argument.

Upon successful completion, ctime_r() returns a pointer to the string pointed to by buf. When an error is encountered, a null pointer is returned.

Errors

No errors are defined.

Implementation tasks

• Add environment parsing for setting timezone and daylight.