I am developing a program for analyzing time series under gnu/linux. To analyze a time window, I want to be able to specify start/end times on the command line. Parsing dates using strptime is simple enough, however I would like to use the flexible ‘natural language’ format as it is used by the unix ”date” command. There, this is done using the parse_datetime function.
I have the source of the coreutils, but would like to avoid copying over the code and all attached header files.
My question is: is there a standard library under Unix/Linux which gives access to the full power of parse_datetime().
The function you refer to is not part of any standard, nor any stock utility library. However, it is available as a semi-standalone component as part of gnulib, namely the parse-datetime module. You will need to take it and incorporate it into your program; the gnulib distribution has tools for that. Be aware that if you do this you have to GPL your entire program (this is not a big deal if the program is only for your personal use — the GPL’s requirements only kick in when you start giving the compiled program to other people).
A possible alternative is
g_date_set_parsefrom GLib, but I can’t speak to how clever it is.