Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!dogie.macc.wisc.edu!indri!pikes!boulder!stan!dworkin
From: dworkin@Solbourne.COM (Dieter Muller)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: reverse asctime()? EEEK!
Keywords: dates
Message-ID: <1499@salgado.Solbourne.COM>
Date: 22 Jun 89 04:17:22 GMT
References: <5178@b11.ingr.com> <9903@dasys1.UUCP>
Reply-To: dworkin@Solbourne.com (Dieter Muller)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Solbourne Computer Inc., Longmont, Colorado
Lines: 29

In article <5178@b11.ingr.com> abashian@b11.ingr.com (Pete Abashian) writes:
>Now the problem.  I need to be able to take an ascii string and 
>convert it back to the internal storage - number of seconds since epoch.
>
>The task would normally entail some simple mathematics to incorporate leap
>[gag] years, etc...  But what about the sticky user(s) that want to be
>able to input virtually any valid combination of dates/times?  12MAY89,
>12-MAY-89, May 12, 1989....etc.  For the life of me I cannot remember EVER  
>seeing an include file or archive with a reference to such a routine.

You might be interested in the CCMD library from Columbia University.
It's ``An Implementation of the TOPS-20 COMND Jsys in C''.  Among many
other things, it has a very nice date parser.  I just tried all the forms
you listed, and they all worked.

The code is public domain (commercial rights reserved) and currently
runs on BSD, SysV, Ultrix, and MS-DOS systems.  It was written by
Andrew Lowry and Howard Kaye at Columbia University.  I know they're
on the net, but I can't find an actual account name anywhere in the
code.

If you have Internet access, you can ftp it from cunixc.columbia.edu.

Dieter
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