C Reference function asctime()

Usage of asctime():

char * asctime ( const struct tm * ptr_time );

Parameters:

ptr_time is a pointer to a tm structure which in turn contains a calendar time.

Return Value:

The function returns a C string containing the date and time information.
The string is followed by a new-line character (‘\n’) and the terminating null-character.

The functions ctime and asctime share the array which holds this string. If either one of these functions is called, the content of the array is overwritten.

Explanation:

The function asctime() interprets the contents of the tm structure as calendar time and converts it to a string. The returned string contains a human-readable version of the date and time. The string that is returned will have the following format:

	Www Mmm dd hh:mm:ss yyyy

Www = which day of the week.

Mmm = month in letters.

dd = the day of the month.

hh:mm:ss = the time in hour, minutes, seconds.

yyyy = the year.

Source code example of asctime():

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

int main ()
{
	time_t  time_raw_format;
	struct tm * ptr_time;

	time ( &time_raw_format);
	ptr_time = localtime ( &time_raw_format );
	printf ( "The current date and time is: %s", asctime(ptr_time));

	return 0;
}

Output example of the program above:

	The current date and time is: Fri Jan 11 11:59:51 2008