---
name: "pmparsetime"
section: "3"
platform: "linux"
package: "libpcp3-dev"
version: "3.9.10"
release: "Debian 8 (Jessie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/__pmParseTime"
---

# pmparsetime(3)

parse time point specification

Part of [\_\_pmParseTime(3)](/__pmParseTime/3.md).

## NAME

**\_\_pmParseTime** - parse time point specification

## C SYNOPSIS

**#include \<pcp/pmapi.h\>**\
 **#include \<pcp/impl.h\>**

**int \_\_pmParseTime(const char \****string***, struct timeval \****logStart***, struct timeval \****logEnd***, struct timeval \****rslt***, char \*\****errMsg***);**

**cc ... -lpcp**

## DESCRIPTION

**\_\_pmParseTime** is designed to encapsulate the interpretation of a time point specification in command line switches for use by the PCP client tools.

This function expects to be called with the time point specification as **string**. If the tool is running against PCP archive(s), you also need to supply the start time of the first (only) archive as **logStart**, and the end of the last (only) archive as **logEnd**. See [**pmGetArchiveLabel**(3)](/pmGetArchiveLabel/3.md) and [**pmGetArchiveEnd**(3)](/pmGetArchiveEnd/3.md) for how to obtain values for these parameters. If the tool is running against a live feed of performance data, **logStart** should be the current time (but could be aligned on the next second for example), while **logEnd** should have its tv\_sec component set to INT\_MAX.

The **rslt** structure must be allocated before calling **\_\_pmParseTime**.

You also need to set the current PCP reporting time zone to correctly reflect the -z and -Z command line parameters before calling **\_\_pmParseTime**. See [**pmUseZone**(3)](/pmUseZone/3.md) and friends for information on how this is done.

If the conversion is successful, **\_\_pmParseTime** returns 0, and fills in **rslt** with the time value defined by the input parameters.  If the argument strings could not be parsed, it returns -1 and a dynamically allocated error message string in **errMsg**. Be sure to **free**(3C) this error message string.

## SEE ALSO

[**PMAPI**(3)](/PMAPI/3.md), [**pmGetArchiveEnd**(3)](/pmGetArchiveEnd/3.md), [**pmGetArchiveLabel**(3)](/pmGetArchiveLabel/3.md), [**pmNewContextZone**(3)](/pmNewContextZone/3.md), [**pmNewZone**(3)](/pmNewZone/3.md), [**pmParseInterval**(3)](/pmParseInterval/3.md), [**pmParseTimeWindow**(3)](/pmParseTimeWindow/3.md), [**pmUseZone**(3)](/pmUseZone/3.md), [**\_\_pmConvertTime**(3)](/__pmConvertTime/3.md) and [**\_\_pmParseCtime**(3)](/__pmParseCtime/3.md).