1 03/07/85 Time Strings
2
3 This segment describes the format of time strings accepted by the
4 convert_date_to_binary_ subroutine. Dates in the range 0001-01-01
5 through 9999-12-31 GMT are handled.
6
7
8 Normal dates:
9
10 EXAMPLE FORMAT
11 December 15, 1979 month_name dd, year
12 December 15 1979 comma optional
13 December 15 year optional
14 15 April 1844 dd month_name year
15 15 Avril year optional
16 04/01/1582 mm/dd/year
17 12/15/1979 mm/dd/year
18 12/15/79 mm/dd/yy century optional
19 12/15 yy optional
20
21
22 Calendar dates:
23 1979-12-15 year-mm-dd
24 1776-07-04
25 79-12-15 yy-mm-dd
26
27
28 24-hour times:
29 1545.715 hhmm.m
30 1545. fraction optional but . required
31 745. hmm.m
32 15:45:42.0856 hh:mm:ss.s
33 15:45:42 fraction optional
34 15:45 seconds optional
35 7:45 h:mm
36 7:2 h:m
37
38
39 12-hour times: 24-hour times with colon, but followed by meridiem
40 designator which may be: am or a, pm or p, noon or n, midnight
41 or m. Hour number may not exceed 12.
42 11:07:30.5 pm hh:mm:ss.s meridiem
43 5:45 am h:mm meridiem
44 5A h meridiem
45 12 n 12 half-day-meridiem
46 midnight half-day-meridiem
47
48
49 Day of week: can be the name of a day of the week. If the date is
50 given, the date must fall on the named day of week. If the date is not
51 given, then day of the week acts as an offset.
52
53
54 Offsets: amount of time added to other clock values. It is expressed
55 as an optionally signed fixed point number, followed by a time unit.
56 One or more of following offset units may be given:
57
58 SINGULAR PLURAL ABBREVIATION
59 microsecond microseconds usec
60 second seconds sec
61 minute minutes min
62 hour hours hr
63 day days da
64 week weeks wk
65 month months mo
66 year years yr
67
68
69 Offsets are applied in the following order--
70 day-of-week as an offset
71 year
72 month
73 week, day, hour, minute, second, microsecond
74
75
76 Time zone: Here are a few of the zones available. For a complete list,
77 type "display_time_info -zones".
78 GMT, Greenwich Mean Time
79 EST, Eastern Standard Time
80 EDT, Eastern Daylight Time
81 Instead of a zone name, a zone designator may be used, i.e. "10A-0700".
82 A zone designator consists of a sign, 2 digits of hour and 2 digits of
83 minute. It must always follow a time specification.
84
85
86 Adverbial offsets: Adverbial clauses which precede a traditional time
87 string. They can have the format:
88
89 <dayname> on or after <trad_time_string>
90 <dayname> on or before <trad_time_string>
91 <dayname> after or on <trad_time_string>
92 <dayname> before or on <trad_time_string>
93 <signed_offsets> before <trad_time_string>
94 <signed_offsets> after <trad_time_string>
95
96
97 Keywords: now can be used instead of a time, to indicate the current
98 time of day, in the working zone. today can be used instead of a date
99 to indicate today's date. Yesterday and tomorrow can also be used, to
100 indicate 1 day before today and 1 day after today.
101
102
103 "this xxx": The xxx are units used to form a date or time. The "this
104 xxx" form is used in place of a part of a date or time value, to
105 indicate that the current value should be used at that point.
106
107
108 Miscellany:
109 841013124523.982222 request id, both date and time
110 FW198412 fiscal week
111 now
112 today
113 tomorrow
114 yesterday
115
116
117 Notes: Alphabetic fields may be uppercase or lowercase, and may be
118 abbreviated. The allowable abbreviations are as defined in time_info_
119 for the various languages it supports. Some languages may not have
120 any defined short form. Spaces are not required between alphabetic
121 and numeric fields, but are required between two numeric fields unless
122 the second number begins with a plus + or minus- sign.
123 Underscores may be used in place of spaces to facilitate typing of
124 time strings in command lines.
125
126 Day, month, and zone names are shown here in English, but they may be
127 given in any language which is defined in the system time_info_ table.
128 In a given string, all names must be in the same language.
129
130
131 Command examples:
132 day_name -1 day
133 prints day name of yesterday
134
135 time 2.5dia -20minuto
136 prints the time 20 minutes ago 2-1/2 days from now
137
138 time -5 hours
139 prints the time 5 hours ago
140
141 date 10/1 -1 day +1 month
142 assuming today is 9/25/79 prints 10/31/79
143
144
145 date month/1/year+1month-1day
146 prints date of last day of this month
147
148 list -from month/1/year_midnight
149 lists files modified since first of this month at midnight
150
151
152 Time string examples:
153 Tue after Mon on or after Nov 1
154 election day
155 5 hours 27 minutes after now
156 today 13:00
157 1 day before today
158 yesterday
159 this month 1, this year
160 the first day of this month
161 this_month/1/this_year
162 the first day of this month
163 this_hour:30
164 the half hour point of the current hour