c++ data type and functions to work with “days”

Question

I'm looking for c++ type and functions to work with "days".

In particular I need to:

• convert strings like "20140224" to datatype and vice versa (of course i can parse strings myself to int if necessary - 2014, 02, 24)
• "iterate", for example from "20140101" to "20140224"

I don't need:

• time of the day. current day is "smallest" pieace i'm working with

I can use c++11, what can you recommend?

Answer 1

C++ has always stayed away from implementing a standard date library.

They are, in general, very hard to implement and standardise. ISO8601 provides some guidance but issues such as leap-seconds, and unusual calendars (eg Ethiopia) will always be tricky areas.

Boost (www.boost.org) certainly makes inroads. Refer to their date-time library. Unfortunately it's quite heavyweight and the build process takes a while to get used to, but worth attempting.

(As an aside, Java have attempted it but the date time library in Java is widely considered to be broken).