Table of contents
CSPICE_STR2ET converts 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.
Given:
timstr a string representing an epoch, or an N-vector of strings.
help, timstr
STRING = Scalar or STRING = Array[N]
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 `timstr' are spelled out
in great detail in the reference document time.req. The
basics are given in the -Particulars section below.
the call:
cspice_str2et, timstr, et
returns:
et the double precision number of TDB seconds past the J2000
epoch that corresponds to the input `timstr', or an N-vector of
numbers.
help, et
DOUBLE = Scalar or DOUBLE = Array[N]
`et' returns with the same measure of vectorization (N)
as `timstr'.
None.
Any numerical results shown for these examples may differ between
platforms as the results depend on the SPICE kernels used as input
and the machine specific arithmetic implementation.
1) Obtain the number of TDB seconds past the J2000 epoch
corresponding to a set of strings representing the input
epoch.
Convert a single calendar epoch and an array of Julian dates
to ephemeris time.
Use the LSK kernel below to load the leap seconds and time
constants required for the conversions.
naif0012.tls
Example code begins here.
PRO str2et_ex1
;;
;; Load a leapseconds kernel.
;;
cspice_furnsh, 'naif0012.tls'
;;
;; Define the epoch as a string.
;;
date = 'Thu Mar 20 12:53:29 PST 1997'
;;
;; Convert a string to ephemeris time (ET).
;;
cspice_str2et, date, et
print, ' Input string time ET '
print, '---------------------------- --------------------'
print, 'Scalar:'
print, FORMAT='(A28,2X,F20.8)', date, et
;;
;; Define a vector of time strings:
;;
time = strarr(5)
;;
;; Allocate an array of longs, initial value
;; 2454000, increment by 10000 for each array
;; element. Use longs, 'L', for the Julian data
;; value.
;;
jd = 10000L * lindgen(5) + 2454000L
;;
;; Fill the time array with string representations
;; of the 'jd' array in the format of a Julian date
;; string. Also strip whitespace.
;;
time+= 'JD' + string(jd) + '.'
time = strcompress( time, /REMOVE_ALL )
;;
;; Convert the array of time strings 'time' to
;; and array of ephemeris times 'et'.
;;
cspice_str2et, time, et
print
print, 'Vector:'
for i=0, 4 do print, FORMAT='(A28,2X,F20.8)', time[i], et[i]
;;
;; It's always good form to unload kernels after use,
;; particularly in IDL due to data persistence.
;;
cspice_kclear
END
When this program was executed on a Mac/Intel/IDL8.x/64-bit
platform, the output was:
Input string time ET
---------------------------- --------------------
Scalar:
Thu Mar 20 12:53:29 PST 1997 -87836728.81438904
Vector:
JD2454000. 212112065.18239054
JD2464000. 1076112069.18491936
JD2474000. 1940112069.18430591
JD2484000. 2804112069.18263292
JD2494000. 3668112069.18564129
2) Below is a sampling of some of the time formats that are
acceptable as inputs to cspice_str2et. A complete discussion of
permissible formats is given in the reference document
time.req.
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
1986-01-18T12:19:52.18Z 1986 Jan na 18 12 19 52.18
1995-08T18:28:12 1995 na 008 na 18 28 12
1995-08T18:28:12Z 1995 na 008 na 18 28 12
1995-18T 1995 na 018 na 00 00 00
0000-01-01T 1 BC Jan na 01 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 to two digits with or without a leading quote
as in 'xy or xy (such as '92 or 92) is to treat the year as
19xy if xy > 68 and to treat it as 20xy otherwise. Thus '70
is interpreted as 1970 and '67 is treated as 2067. However,
you may change the "split point" and centuries through use
of the Icy routine cspice_tsetyr. 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. If you have epochs
belonging to the Julian Calendar, consult the SPICELIB
routines TPARTV and JUL2GR for a discussion concerning
conversions to the Gregorian calendar and ET. The routines
cspice_timdef and cspice_str2et, used together, also support
conversions from Julian Calendar epochs to ET.
+ 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.
Any integer greater than 1000 is regarded as a year
specification. Thus 1001-1821//12:28:28 is interpreted as
specifying two years and will be rejected as ambiguous.
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 routine
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 reference document time.req.
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, cspice_str2et 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 68 ( 69 - 99 ) are regarded as being an
abbreviation with the '19' suppressed (1969 - 1999). Years
smaller than 69 ( 00 - 68 ) are regarded as being an
abbreviation with the '20' suppressed (2000 - 2068).
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 1969 to 2068.
You may modify these defaults through the routines cspice_timdef
and cspice_tsetyr.
You may:
Set the calendar to be Gregorian, Julian or a mixture of
two via the cspice_timdef;
Set the time system to be UTC, TDB, TDT or any time zone
via the routine cspice_timdef;
Set the range of year abbreviations to be any 100 year
interval via the routine cspice_tsetyr.
See the SPICELIB routine TEXPYR and cspice_timdef 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, cspice_str2et
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. cspice_str2et does not
support such strings.
5) No exponential components are allowed. For example you
can't specify the Julian date of J2000 as 2.451545E6.
You also can't input 1993 Jun 23 23:00:01.202E-4 and have
to explicitly list all zeros that follow the decimal
point: i.e. 1993 Jun 23 23:00:00.0001202.
6) The single colon (:) when used to separate numeric
components of a string is interpreted as separating
Hours, Minutes, and Seconds of time.
7) If a double slash (//) or double colon (::) follows
a pair of integers, those integers are assumed to
represent the year and day of year.
8) 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 the SPICELIB
routine TEXPYR for further discussion of abbreviated years.
9) An integer followed by 'B.C.' or 'A.D.' is regarded as
a year in the era associated with that abbreviation.
10) 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 cspice_timdef
to modify this behavior.
11) 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. Historically the interpretation of ISO
formatted time strings deviates from the ISO standard in
allowing two digit years and expanding years in the 0 to 99
range the same way as is done for non ISO formatted strings.
Due to this interpretation it is impossible to specify
times in years in the 0 A.D. to 99 A.D. range using ISO
formatted strings on the input.
12) 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.
13) White space and commas serve only to delimit tokens in the
input string. They do not affect the meaning of any
of the tokens.
14) If an integer is greater than 1000 (and the 'JD' label
is not present, the integer is regarded as a year.
15) 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 is present (// or ::) 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.
1) If the `timstr' input string cannot be recognized as a
legitimate time string, the error SPICE(UNPARSEDTIME) is
signaled by a routine in the call tree of this routine.
2) If more than one time system is specified as part of the input
time string, the error SPICE(TIMECONFLICT) is signaled by a
routine in the call tree of this routine.
3) If any component of the input time string is outside the
normal range of usage, the error SPICE(BADTIMESTRING) is
signaled by a routine in the call tree of this routine. 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) If a time zone is specified with hours or minutes components
that are outside of the normal range, the error
SPICE(TIMEZONEERROR) is signaled by a routine in the call tree
of this routine.
5) If the input argument `timstr' is undefined, an error is
signaled by the IDL error handling system.
6) If the input argument `timstr' is not of the expected type, or
it does not have the expected dimensions and size, an error is
signaled by the Icy interface.
7) If the output argument `et' is not a named variable, an error
is signaled by the Icy interface.
None.
None.
ICY.REQ
TIME.REQ
None.
M. Costa Sitja (JPL)
J. Diaz del Rio (ODC Space)
E.D. Wright (JPL)
-Icy Version 1.2.0, 23-DEC-2021 (JDR) (EDW) (MCS)
Changed the input argument name "str" to "timstr" for consistency
with other routines.
Edited the header to comply with NAIF standard. Added
examples #1. Added problem statement and meta-kernel for
example #2. Reformatted output and added a call to cspice_kclear
in example #2.
Added -Parameters, -Exceptions, -Files, -Restrictions,
-Literature_References and -Author_and_Institution sections, and
completed -Particulars section.
Removed reference to the routine's corresponding CSPICE header from
-Abstract section.
Added arguments' type and size information in the -I/O section.
Header edits to expand description of ISO format.
-Icy Version 1.1.2, 13-JUN-2010 (EDW)
Minor edit to code comments eliminating typo.
-Icy Version 1.1.1, 05-FEB-2008 (EDW)
Edited -I/O section, replaced comment
"returns with the same order"
with
"returns with the same measure of vectorization"
-Icy Version 1.1.0, 01-AUG-2004 (EDW)
Added capability to process vector 'timstr' input
returning a vector 'et' on output.
-Icy Version 1.0.0, 16-JUN-2003 (EDW)
Convert a string to TDB seconds past the J2000 epoch
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