Re: [bug-gawk] proposed new gawk time function strptime()

[Andrew J. Schorr]

Hi,

> >>Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 23:28:12 -0500
> >>From: Ed Morton <address@hidden>
> >>
> >>The proposed function is well defined, exists in other languages and so is 
> >>well known, provides symmetry with an existing gawk function (strftime()), 
> >>does not impact any other part of the language, I would imagine is about as 
> >>easy as it can get to implement since it already exists in libraries, fits 
> >>in like a missing puzzle piece to the existing set of gawk time functions, 
> >>and the only impact to existing scripts would be if someone had their own 
> >>function named strptime() defined.

> On 8/29/2014 1:42 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> >Some old or non-Posix platforms will not have strptime in their
> >standard libraries, so we will need to import e.g. the gnulib
> >implementation.

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 11:21:36AM -0500, Ed Morton wrote:
> I know it's been a while since I opened
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gawk/2014-08/msg00024.html
> but I just came across the "time" library 
> (https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/html_node/Extension-Sample-Time.html#Extension-Sample-Time).
> Any chance of getting strptime() added to that if not to the main
> gawk code?

To do this, one would need to patch extension/configure.ac to add strptime to
AC_CHECK_FUNCS, and then we'd need a portable implementation to use on
platforms where it's not present to go in missing_d/strptime.c. I'm pretty
certain this new function will not be added to core gawk; I believe the goal is
to stabilize core gawk and add new features in extension libraries where
possible.  A strptime function could potentially go in the bundled time
library, a separate bundled library, or a new library in the gawkextlib
project; I'm not sure which makes most sense. And then, of course, somebody
needs to do the work...

Regards,
Andy