void str2et_c ( ConstSpiceChar * str,
SpiceDouble * et )
Convert a string representing an epoch to a double precision
value representing the number of TDB seconds past the J2000
epoch corresponding to the input epoch.
TIME
TIME
VARIABLE I/O DESCRIPTION
-------- --- --------------------------------------------------
str I A string representing an epoch.
et O The equivalent value in seconds past J2000, TDB.
str is a string representing an epoch. Virtually all common
calendar representations are allowed. You may specify a
time string belonging to any of the systems TDB, TDT,
UTC. Moreover, you may specify a time string relative to
a specific UTC based time zone.
The rules used in the parsing of `str' are spelled out in
great detail in the CSPICE routine tpartv_. The basics
are given in the Particulars section below.
et is the double precision number of TDB seconds past the
J2000 epoch that corresponds to the input `str'.
None.
1) The error SPICE(UNPARSEDTIME) is signaled if the
string cannot be recognized as a legitimate time string.
2) The error SPICE(TIMECONFLICT) is signaled if more than
one time system is specified as part of the time string.
3) The error SPICE(BADTIMESTRING) is signaled if any component
of the time string is outside the normal range of usage.
For example, the day January 35 is outside the normal range
of days in January. The checks applied are spelled out in
the routine tcheck_.
4) The error SPICE(EMPTYSTRING) is signaled if the input
string does not contain at least one character, since the
input string cannot be converted to a Fortran-style string
in this case.
5) The error SPICE(NULLPOINTER) is signaled if the input string
pointer is null.
None.
This routine computes the ephemeris epoch corresponding to an input
string. The ephemeris epoch is represented as seconds past the
J2000 epoch in the time system known as Barycentric Dynamical Time
(TDB). This time system is also referred to as Ephemeris Time (ET)
throughout the SPICE Toolkit.
The variety of ways people have developed for representing times is
enormous. It is unlikely that any single subroutine can accommodate
the wide variety of custom time formats that have arisen in various
computing contexts. However, we believe that this routine will
correctly interpret most time formats used throughout the planetary
science community. For example this routine supports ISO time
formats and UNIX `date` output formats. One obvious omission from
the strings recognized by this routine are strings of the form
93234.1829 or 1993234.1829
Some readers may recognize this as the epoch that is 0.1829
days past the beginning of the 234'th day of 1993. However,
many other readers may regard this interpretation as a bit
obscure.
Below we outline some of the rules used in the interpretation
of strings. A more complete discussion of the interpretation
of strings is given in the routine tpartv_.
Default Behavior
----------------
Consider the string
1988 June 13, 3:29:48
There is nothing in this string to indicate what time system
the date and time belong to. Moreover, there is nothing to
indicate whether the time is based on a 24-hour clock or
twelve hour clock.
In the absence of such indicators, the default interpretation
of this string is to regard the time of day to be a time on
a 24-hour clock in the UTC time system. The date is a date
on the Gregorian Calendar (this is the calendar used in nearly
all western societies).
Labels
------
If you add more information to the string, str2et_c can
make a more informed interpretation of the time string.
For example:
1988 June 13, 3:29:48 P.M.
is still regarded as a UTC epoch. However, with the addition
of the "P.M." label it is now interpreted as the same epoch
as the unlabeled epoch 1988 June 13, 15:29:48. Similarly
1988 June 13, 12:29:48 A.M.
is interpreted as
1988 June 13, 00:29:48
For the record: 12:00 A.M. corresponds to Midnight (00:00 on the
24 hour clock. 12:00 P.M. corresponds to Noon. (12:00) on the
24 hour clock.
You may add still further indicators to the string. For example
1988 June 13, 3:29:48 P.M. PST
is interpreted as an epoch in the Pacific Standard Time system.
This is equivalent to
1988 June 13, 07:29:48 UTC
The following U.S. time zones are recognized.
EST --- Eastern Standard Time ( UTC-5:00 )
CST --- Central Standard Time ( UTC-6:00 )
MST --- Mountain Standard Time ( UTC-7:00 )
PST --- Pacific Standard Time ( UTC-8:00 )
EDT --- Eastern Daylight Time ( UTC-4:00 )
CDT --- Central Daylight Time ( UTC-5:00 )
MDT --- Mountain Daylight Time ( UTC-6:00 )
PDT --- Pacific Daylight Time ( UTC-7:00 )
In addition any other time zone may be specified by representing its
offset from UTC. This notation starts with the letters "UTC"
followed by a "+" for time zones east of Greenwich and "-" for time
zones west of Greenwich. This is followed by the number of hours to
add or subtract from UTC. This is optionally followed by a colon
":" and the number of minutes to add or subtract to get the local
time zone. Thus to specify the time zone of Calcutta (which is 5
and 1/2 hours ahead of UTC) you would specify the time zone to be
UTC+5:30. To specify the time zone of Newfoundland (which is 3 and
1/2 hours behind UTC) use the offset notation UTC-3:30.
For the Record: Leapseconds occur at the same time in all
time zones. In other words, the seconds component of a time
string is the same for any time zone as is the seconds
component of UTC. Thus the following are all legitimate
ways to represent an epoch of some event that occurred
in the leapsecond
1995 December 31 23:59:60.5 (UTC)
1996 January 1, 05:29:60.5 (UTC+5:30 --- Calcutta Time)
1995 December 31, 20:29:60.5 (UTC-3:30 --- Newfoundland)
1995 December 31 18:59:60.5 (EST)
1995 December 31 17:59:60.5 (CST)
1995 December 31 16:59:60.5 (MST)
1995 December 31 15:59:60.5 (PST)
In addition to specifying time zones, you may specify that the
string be interpreted as a formal calendar representation in either
the Barycentric Dynamical Time system (TDB) or the Terrestrial
Dynamical Time system (TDT). In These systems there are no
leapseconds. Times in TDB are written as
1988 June 13, 12:29:48 TDB
TDT times are written as:
1988 June 13, 12:29:48 TDT
Finally, you may explicitly state that the time system is UTC
1988 June 13, 12:29:48 UTC.
Abbreviating Years
------------------
Although it can lead to confusion, many people are in the
habit of abbreviating years when they write them in dates.
For example
99 Jan 13, 12:28:24
Upon seeing such a string, most of us would regard this
as being 1999 January 13, 12:28:24 and not January 13 of
the year 99. This routine interprets years that are less
than 100 as belonging either to the 1900's or 2000's. Years
greater than 49 ( 50 - 99 ) are regarded as being an
abbreviation with the '19' suppressed (1950 - 1999). Years
smaller than 50 ( 00 - 49 ) are regarded as being an
abbreviation with the '20' suppressed (2000 - 2049).
Note that in general it is usually a good idea to write
out the year. Or if you'd like to save some typing
abbreviate 1999 as '99.
If you need to specify an epoch whose year
is less than 1000, we recommend that you specify the era
along with the year. For example if you want to specify
the year 13 A.D. write it as
13 A.D. Jan 12
When specifying the era it should immediately follow the year.
Both the A.D. and B.C. eras are supported.
Changing Default Behavior
-------------------------
As discussed above, if a string is unlabeled, it is regarded
as representing a string in the UTC time system on the
Gregorian calendar. In addition abbreviated years are
regarded as abbreviations of the years from 1950 to 2049.
You may modify these defaults through the routines timdef_c_
and tsetyr_c.
You may:
Set the calendar to be Gregorian, Julian or a mixture of
two via the timdef_c;
Set the time system to be UTC, TDB, TDT or any time zone
via the routine timdef_c;
Set the range of year abbreviations to be any 100 year
interval via the routine tsetyr_c.
See the routines texpyr_ and timdef_c for details on changing
defaults.
These alterations affect only the interpretation of unlabeled
strings. If an input string is labeled the specification
in the label is used.
If any component of a date or time is out of range, str2et_c
regards the string as erroneous. Below is a list of
erroneous strings and why they are regarded as such.
1997 Jan 32 12:29:29 --- there are only 31 days in January
'98 Jan 12 13:29:29 A.M. --- Hours must be between 1 and 12
inclusive when A.M. or P.M. is
specified.
1997 Feb 29, 12:29:20.0 --- February has only 29 days in
1997. This would be ok if the
year was 1996.
1992 Mar 12 12:62:20 --- Minutes must be between 0 and 59
inclusive.
1993 Mar 18 15:29:60.5 --- Seconds is out of range for this
date. It would not be out of
range for Dec 31 23:59:60.5 or
Jun 30 23:59:60.5 because these
can be leapseconds (UTC).
Specifics On Interpretation of the Input String
-----------------------------------------------
The process of examining the string to determine its meaning is
called "parsing" the string. The string is parsed by first
determining its recognizable substrings (integers, punctuation
marks, names of months, names of weekdays, time systems, time zones,
etc.) These recognizable substrings are called the tokens of the
input string. The meaning of some tokens are immediately
determined. For example named months, weekdays, time systems have
clear meanings. However, the meanings of numeric components must be
deciphered from their magnitudes and location in the string relative
to the immediately recognized components of the input string.
To determine the meaning of the numeric tokens in the input string,
a set of "production rules" and transformations are applied to the
full set of tokens in the string. These transformations are
repeated until the meaning of every token has been determined, or
until further transformations yield no new clues into the meaning of
the numeric tokens.
1) Unless the substring "JD" or "jd" is present, the string is
assumed to be a calendar format (day-month-year or year and
day of year). If the substring JD or jd is present, the
string is assumed to represent a Julian date.
2) If the Julian date specifier is not present, any integer
greater than 999 is regarded as being a year specification.
3) A dash "-" can represent a minus sign only if it precedes
the first digit in the string and the string contains
the Julian date specifier (JD). (No negative years,
months, days, etc. are allowed).
4) Numeric components of a time string must be separated
by a character that is not a digit or decimal point.
Only one decimal component is allowed. For example
1994219.12819 is sometimes interpreted as the
219th day of 1994 + 0.12819 days. str2et_c does not
support such strings.
No exponential components are allowed. For example you
can't specify the Julian date of J2000 as 2.451545E6.
5) The single colon (:) when used to separate numeric
components of a string is interpreted as separating
Hours, Minutes, and Seconds of time.
6) If a double slash (//) or double colon (::) follows
a pair of integers, those integers are assumed to
represent the year and day of year.
7) A quote followed by an integer less than 100 is regarded
as an abbreviated year. For example: '93 would be regarded
as the 93rd year of the reference century. See texpyr_
for further discussion of abbreviated years.
8) An integer followed" by "B.C." or "A.D." is regarded as
a year in the era associated with that abbreviation.
9) All dates are regarded as belonging to the extended
Gregorian Calendar (the Gregorian calendar is the calendar
currently used by western society). See the routine timedef_
to modify this behavior.
10) If the ISO date-time separator (T) is present in the string
ISO allowed token patterns are examined for a match
with the current token list. If no match is found the
search is abandoned and appropriate diagnostic messages
are generated.
11) If two delimiters are found in succession in the time
string, the time string is diagnosed as an erroneous
string. (Delimiters are comma, white space, dash, slash,
period, or day of year mark. The day of year mark is a pair
of forward slashes or a pair of colons.)
Note the delimiters do not have to be the same. The pair
of characters ",-" counts as two successive delimiters.
12) White space and commas serve only to delimit tokens in the
input string. They do not affect the meaning of any
of the tokens.
13) If an integer is greater than 1000 (and the "JD" label
is not present, the integer is regarded as a year.
14) When the size of the integer components does not clearly
specify a year the following patterns are assumed
Calendar Format
Year Month Day
Month Day Year
Year Day Month
where Month is the name of a month, not its numeric
value.
When integer components are separated by slashes (/)
as in 3/4/5. Month, Day, Year is assumed (2005 March 4)
Day of Year Format
If a day of year marker (// or ::) is present, the
pattern I-I// or I-I:: (where I stands for an integer)
is interpreted as Year Day-of-Year. However, I-I/ is
regarded as ambiguous.
Below is a sampling of some of the time formats that are acceptable
as inputs to str2et_c. A complete discussion of permissible formats
is given in the CSPICE routine tpartv_ as well as the reference
document time.req located in the "doc" directory of the Toolkit.
ISO (T) Formats.
String Year Mon DOY DOM HR Min Sec
---------------------------- ---- --- --- --- -- --- ------
1996-12-18T12:28:28 1996 Dec na 18 12 28 28
1986-01-18T12 1986 Jan na 18 12 00 00
1986-01-18T12:19 1986 Jan na 18 12 19 00
1986-01-18T12:19:52.18 1986 Jan na 18 12 19 52.18
1995-08T18:28:12 1995 na 008 na 18 28 12
1995-18T 1995 na 018 na 00 00 00
Calendar Formats.
String Year Mon DOM HR Min Sec
---------------------------- ---- --- --- -- --- ------
Tue Aug 6 11:10:57 1996 1996 Aug 06 11 10 57
1 DEC 1997 12:28:29.192 1997 Dec 01 12 28 29.192
2/3/1996 17:18:12.002 1996 Feb 03 17 18 12.002
Mar 2 12:18:17.287 1993 1993 Mar 02 12 18 17.287
1992 11:18:28 3 Jul 1992 Jul 03 11 18 28
June 12, 1989 01:21 1989 Jun 12 01 21 00
1978/3/12 23:28:59.29 1978 Mar 12 23 28 59.29
17JUN1982 18:28:28 1982 Jun 17 18 28 28
13:28:28.128 1992 27 Jun 1992 Jun 27 13 28 28.128
1972 27 jun 12:29 1972 Jun 27 12 29 00
'93 Jan 23 12:29:47.289 1993* Jan 23 12 29 47.289
27 Jan 3, 19:12:28.182 2027* Jan 03 19 12 28.182
23 A.D. APR 4, 18:28:29.29 0023** Apr 04 18 28 29.29
18 B.C. Jun 3, 12:29:28.291 -017** Jun 03 12 29 28.291
29 Jun 30 12:29:29.298 2029+ Jun 30 12 29 29.298
29 Jun '30 12:29:29.298 2030* Jun 29 12 29 29.298
Day of Year Formats
String Year DOY HR Min Sec
---------------------------- ---- --- -- --- ------
1997-162::12:18:28.827 1997 162 12 18 28.827
162-1996/12:28:28.287 1996 162 12 28 28.287
1993-321/12:28:28.287 1993 231 12 28 28.287
1992 183// 12 18 19 1992 183 12 18 19
17:28:01.287 1992-272// 1992 272 17 28 01.287
17:28:01.282 272-1994// 1994 272 17 28 01.282
'92-271/ 12:28:30.291 1992* 271 12 28 30.291
92-182/ 18:28:28.281 1992* 182 18 28 28.281
182-92/ 12:29:29.192 0182+ 092 12 29 29.192
182-'92/ 12:28:29.182 1992 182 12 28 29.182
Julian Date Strings
jd 28272.291 Julian Date 28272.291
2451515.2981 (JD) Julian Date 2451515.2981
2451515.2981 JD Julian Date 2451515.2981
Abbreviations Used in Tables
na --- Not Applicable
Mon --- Month
DOY --- Day of Year
DOM --- Day of Month
Wkday --- Weekday
Hr --- Hour
Min --- Minutes
Sec --- Seconds
* The default interpretation of a year that has been abbreviated
with a leading quote as in 'xy (such as '92) is to treat the year as
19xy if xy > 68 and to treat it is 20xy otherwise. Thus '69 is
interpreted as 1969 and '68 is treated as 2068. However, you may
change the "split point" and centuries through use of the CSPICE
routine tsetyr_c. See that routine for a discussion of how you may
reset the split point.
** All epochs are regarded as belonging to the Gregorian calendar.
We formally extend the Gregorian calendar backward and forward in
time for all epochs.
+ When a day of year format or calendar format string is input and
neither of the integer components of the date is greater than 1000,
the first integer is regarded as being the year.
Suppose you would like to determine whether your favorite time
representation is supported by str2et_c. The small program below
gives you a simple way to experiment with str2et_c. (Note that
erroneous inputs will be flagged by signaling an error.)
To build and run this program you need to:
1. copy it to a file,
2. un-comment the obvious lines of code,
and replace the default string with your test string
3. compile it,
4. link the resulting object file with CSPICE,
5. and place the leapseconds kernel in your current directory.
#include <stdio.h>
#include "SpiceUsr.h"
char *date = "Thu Mar 20 12:53:29 PST 1997";
char *leap = "naif0007.tls";
main ()
{
furnsh_c ( leap );
str2et_c ( date, &et );
printf ( "%f\n", et );
}
None.
None.
C.H. Acton (JPL)
N.J. Bachman (JPL)
W.L. Taber (JPL)
-CSPICE Version 1.1.5, 02-NOV-2009 (CHA)
A few minor grammar fixes in the header.
-CSPICE Version 1.1.4, 16-JAN-2008 (EDW)
Corrected typos in header titles:
Detailed Input to Detailed_Input
Detailed Output to Detailed_Output
-CSPICE Version 1.1.3, 12-NOV-2006 (EDW)
Added Parameters section header.
-CSPICE Version 1.1.2, 29-JUL-2003 (CHA) (NJB)
Various minor header corrections were made.
-CSPICE Version 1.1.1, 10-FEB-2002 (NJB)
Corrected typo in header.
-CSPICE Version 1.1.0, 08-FEB-1998 (NJB)
Re-implemented routine without dynamically allocated, temporary
strings. Exceptions section of header was updated.
-CSPICE Version 1.0.0, 25-OCT-1997 (EDW)
Convert a string to TDB seconds past the J2000 epoch
Link to routine str2et_c source file str2et_c.c
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