The following example converts a string ISO format time in an arbitrary time zone to a binary timestamp. This may be part of an input timestamp routine, although a real implementation will include range checking. utc_t utc; struct tm tmtime, tminacc; float tsec, isec; double tmp; long tnsec, insec; int i, offset, tzhour, tzmin, year, mon; char *string; /* Try to convert the string... */ if(sscanf(string, "%d-%d-%d-%d:%d:%e+%d:%dI%e", &year, &mon, &tmtime.tm_mday, &tmtime.tm_hour, &tmtime.tm_min, &tsec, &tzhour, &tzmin, &isec) != 9) { /* Try again with a negative TDF... */ if (sscanf(string, "%d-%d-%d-%d:%d:%e-%d:%dI%e", &year, &mon, &tmtime.tm_mday, &tmtime.tm_hour, &tmtime.tm_min, &tsec, &tzhour, &tzmin, &isec) != 9) { /* ERROR */ exit(1); } /* TDF is negative */ tzhour = -tzhour; tzmin = -tzmin; } /* Fill in the fields... */ tmtime.tm_year = year - 1900; tmtime.tm_mon = --mon; tmtime.tm_sec = tsec; tnsec = (modf(tsec, &tmp)*1.0E9); offset = tzhour*3600 + tzmin*60; tminacc.tm_sec = isec; insec = (modf(isec, &tmp)*1.0E9); /* Convert to a binary timestamp... */ utc_mkanytime(&utc, /* Out: Resultant binary timestamp */ &tmtime, /* In: tm struct that represents input */ tnsec, /* In: Nanoseconds from input */ &tminacc, /* In: tm struct that represents inacc */ insec, /* In: Nanoseconds from input */ offset); /* In: TDF from input */