asctime, _wasctime

Converts a tm time structure to a character string.

char*asctime(conststructtm*timeptr);

wchar_t*_wasctime(conststructtm*timeptr);

Routine Required Header Compatibility
asctime <time.h> ANSI, Win 95, Win NT
_wasctime <time.h> or <wchar.h> Win 95, Win NT

For additional compatibility information, see Compatibility in the Introduction.

Libraries

LIBC.LIB Single thread static library, retail version
LIBCMT.LIB Multithread static library, retail version
MSVCRT.LIB Import library for MSVCRT.DLL, retail version

Return Value

asctime returns a pointer to the character string result; _wasctime returns a pointer to the wide-character string result. There is no error return value.

Parameter

timeptr

Time/date structure

Remarks

The asctime function converts a time stored as a structure to a character string. The timeptr value is usually obtained from a call to gmtime or localtime, which both return a pointer to a tm structure, defined in TIME.H.

timeptr Field Value
tm_hour Hours since midnight (0 – 23)
tm_isdst Positive if daylight saving time is in effect; 0 if daylight saving time is not in effect; negative if status of daylight saving time is unknown. The C run-time library assumes the United States’s rules for implementing the calculation of Daylight Saving Time (DST).
tm_mday Day of month (1 – 31)
tm_min Minutes after hour (0 – 59)
tm_mon Month (0 – 11; January = 0)
tm_sec Seconds after minute (0 – 59)
tm_wday Day of week (0 – 6; Sunday = 0)
tm_yday Day of year (0 – 365; January 1 = 0)
tm_year Year (current year minus 1900)

The converted character string is also adjusted according to the local time zone settings. See the time, _ftime, and localtime functions for information on configuring the local time and the _tzset function for details about defining the time zone environment and global variables.

The string result produced by asctime contains exactly 26 characters and has the form Wed Jan 02 02:03:55 1980\n\0. A 24-hour clock is used. All fields have a constant width. The newline character and the null character occupy the last two positions of the string. asctime uses a single, statically allocated buffer to hold the return string. Each call to this function destroys the result of the previous call.

_wasctime is a wide-character version of asctime. _wasctime and asctime behave identically otherwise.

Generic-Text Routine Mapping:

TCHAR.H Routine _UNICODE & _MBCS Not Defined _MBCS Defined _UNICODE Defined
_tasctime asctime asctime _wasctime

Example

/* ASCTIME.C: This program places the system time
 * in the long integer aclock, translates it into the
 * structure newtime and then converts it to string
 * form for output, using the asctime function.
 */

#include <time.h>
#include <stdio.h>

struct tm *newtime;
time_t aclock;

void main( void )
{
   time( &aclock );                 /* Get time in seconds */

   newtime = localtime( &aclock );  /* Convert time to struct */
                                    /* tm form */

   /* Print local time as a string */
   printf( "The current date and time are: %s", asctime( newtime ) );
}

Output

The current date and time are: Sun May 01 20:27:01 1994

Time Management Routines

See Also   ctime, _ftime, gmtime, localtime, time, _tzset