C <time.h> - asctime() Function

The C <time.h> asctime() function converts the contents of the tm structure pointed by timeptr into calendar time and then to a textual representation. The returned string has the following format:

Www Mmm dd hh:mm:ss yyyy

• Www - Www - the day of the week from timeptr->tm_wday (one of Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun)
• Mmm - the month from timeptr->tm_mon (one of Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec)
• dd - the day of the month from timeptr->tm_mday as if printed by sprintf using %2d
• hh - hours from timeptr->tm_hour as if printed by sprintf using %.2d
• mm - minutes from timeptr->tm_min as if printed by sprintf using %.2d
• ss - seconds from timeptr->tm_sec as if printed by sprintf using %.2d
• yyyy - years from timeptr->tm_year + 1900 as if printed by sprintf using %4d

The string is followed by a new-line character ('\n') and terminated with a null-character. The behavior is undefined if any member of *timeptr is outside its normal range.

Syntax

char* asctime (const struct tm * timeptr);

Parameters

Return Value

Returns a C-string containing textual representation of date and time. The string may be shared between asctime() and ctime(), and may be overwritten on each invocation of any of these functions.

Example:

The example below shows the usage of asctime() function.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>
 
int main (){
  time_t t = time(NULL);
  struct tm * timeinfo = localtime(&t);

  //displaying the result 
  printf("Current local time & date: %s", asctime(timeinfo));   
  
  return 0;
}

The output of the above code will be:

Current local time & date: Fri Apr 16 13:07:33 2021