Are there any standard (C, C++, POSIX, Linux...) alternatives to strftime which can be used to calculate the required size of the string buffer for a given format and time, truncate the output (instead of leaving the array contents undefined like strftime does) if buffer size is less than required for full output. For example, snprintf -like semantics for date/time formatting which accept strftime format strings would do perfectly. Functions like std::put_time in C++11 and later are not an option, because these may attempt to allocate extra memory dynamically and may throw exceptions.

Reasonable snprintf-like alternatives to strftime?

Are there any standard (C, C++, POSIX, Linux...) alternatives to strftime which can be used to

calculate the required size of the string buffer for a given format and time,
truncate the output (instead of leaving the array contents undefined like strftime does) if buffer size is less than required for full output.

For example, snprintf-like semantics for date/time formatting which accept strftime format strings would do perfectly.

Functions like std::put_time in C++11 and later are not an option, because these may attempt to allocate extra memory dynamically and may throw exceptions.

Reasonable snprintf-like alternatives to strftime?

1 Answers