.TH CTIME 2
.SH NAME
ctime, localtime, gmtime, asctime, tm2sec, timezone \- convert date and time
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B #include <u.h>
.br
.B #include <libc.h>
.PP
.ta \w'\fLchar* 'u
.B
char*	ctime(long clock)
.PP
.B
Tm*	localtime(long clock)
.PP
.B
Tm*	gmtime(long clock)
.PP
.B
char*	asctime(Tm *tm)
.PP
.B
long	tm2sec(Tm *tm)
.PP
.B
/env/timezone
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Ctime
converts a time
.I clock
such as returned by
.IR time (2)
into
.SM ASCII
(sic)
and returns a pointer to a
30-byte string
in the following form.
All the fields have constant width.
.PP
.B
	Wed Aug  5 01:07:47 EST 1973\en\e0
.PP
.I Localtime
and
.I gmtime
return pointers to structures containing
the broken-down time.
.I Localtime
corrects for the time zone and possible daylight savings time;
.I gmtime
converts directly to GMT.
.I Asctime
converts a broken-down time to
.SM ASCII
and returns a pointer
to a 30-byte string.
.IP
.EX
.ta 6n +\w'char 'u +\w'zone[4];    'u
typedef
struct {
	int	sec;	/* seconds (range 0..59) */
	int	min;	/* minutes (0..59) */
	int	hour;	/* hours (0..23) */
	int	mday;	/* day of the month (1..31) */
	int	mon;	/* month of the year (0..11) */
	int	year;	/* year A.D. \- 1900 */
	int	wday;	/* day of week (0..6, Sunday = 0) */
	int	yday;	/* day of year (0..365) */
	char	zone[4];	/* time zone name */
	int	tzoff;	/* time zone delta from GMT */
} Tm;
.EE
.PP
.I Tm2sec
converts a broken-down time to
seconds since the start of the epoch.
It ignores
.BR wday ,
and assumes the local time zone
if
.B zone
is not
.BR GMT .
.PP
When local time is first requested,
the program consults the
.B timezone
environment variable to determine the time zone and
converts accordingly.
(This variable is set at system boot time by
.IR init (8).)
The
.B timezone
variable contains
the normal time zone name and its difference from GMT
in seconds followed by an alternate (daylight) time zone name and
its difference followed by a newline.
The remainder is a list of pairs of times
(seconds past the start of 1970, in the first time zone)
when the alternate time zone applies.
For example:
.IP
.EX
EST -18000 EDT -14400
 9943200 25664400 41392800 57718800 ...
.EE
.PP
Greenwich Mean Time is represented by
.IP
.EX
GMT 0
.EE
.SH SOURCE
.B /sys/src/libc/9sys
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IR date (1),
.IR time (2),
.IR init (8)
.SH BUGS
The return values point to static data
whose content is overwritten by each call.
.br
Daylight Savings Time is ``normal'' in the Southern hemisphere.
.br
These routines are not equipped to handle non-\c
.SM ASCII
text, and are provincial anyway.