Embedding Unix date in a C program

Question

I have a C program running on a Unix box.

I would like to print a timestamp to an output file - at the moment I use the command date to print the datetime on the terminal.

fprintf(outputfile, "%s ", date);

How do I go about doing this?

Answer 1

Use POSIX strftime(3) - format date and time for a C solution. It use the same format strings as date(1)

I also recommend you read the standard library intro(3) .