datetime-parse() #

number datetime-parse(string format, string datetime)

Parses the given datetime according to format and returns the corresponding Unix timestamp.

Parts of datetime not covered by format are filled with default values: year = 1970, month = 1, day = 1, time = 00:00:00.0, timezone = value of the system timezone set by the TZ environment variable (defaults to UTC).

The system timezone is ignored if datetime either is a UNIX timestamp or specifies a timezone itself (e.g. 1. Jan 1970 CET → -3600).

datetime-parse() returns NaN if parsing fails.

Overflows may occur if a given date is out of range (e.g. 33 December 2022 → 2 January 2023)

Examples #

<!-- environment variable TZ="" or TZ="UTC" → 0 -->
<eval out="$jan-1st-1970">datetime-parse('Y-m-d', '1970-01-01')</eval>

<!-- TZ="CET" → -3600 -->
<eval out="$jan-1st-1970">datetime-parse('Y-m-d', '1970-01-01')</eval>

<!-- TZ="CET", but UTC given in datetime → 0 -->
<eval out="$jan-1st-1970">datetime-parse('Y-m-d T', '1970-01-01 UTC')</eval>

<!-- → 1000000000 -->
<eval out="$unix-billennium">datetime-parse('d M Y H:i:s T', '09 Sep 2001 01:46:40 UTC')</eval>

Format #

Escape any of the below formatting letters with a backslash (\) to parse them literally. Supported separators are: ;, :, /, ., ,, -, (, ).

See also #

• datetime-parse-iso()
• datetime-format()
• unixtime()