dp - parse dates 822-style

Dp is a program that parses dates according to the ARPA Internet standard. It also understands many non-standard formats, such as those produced by TOPS-20 sites and some UNIX sites using ctime(3). It is useful for seeing how nmh will interpret a date.

The dp program treats each argument as a single date, and prints the date out in the official 822-format. Hence, it is usually best to enclose each argument in double-quotes for the shell.

To override the output format used by dp, the -format string or -format file switches are used. This permits individual fields of the address to be extracted with ease. The string is simply a format string and the file is simply a format file. See mh-format(5) for the details.

Here is the default format string used by dp:

%<(nodate{text})error: %{text}%|%(putstr(pretty{text}))%>

which says that if an error was detected, print the error, a `:', and the date in error. Otherwise, output the 822-proper format of the date.

^$HOME/.mhprofile~^The user profile

None

ap(8), Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages (RFC-822)

`-format' default as described above
`-width' default to the width of the terminal

None

The argument to the -format switch must be interpreted as a single token by the shell that invokes dp. Therefore, one must usually place the argument to this switch inside double-quotes.