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man page(1) manual page Table of Contents

Name

date - print or set the system date and time

Synopsis

date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT]
date [-u|--utc|--universal] [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]

Description

Display the current time in the given FORMAT, or set the system date.

-d, --date=STRING
display time described by STRING, not ‘now’

-f, --file=DATEFILE
like --date once for each line of DATEFILE

-r, --reference=FILE
display the last modification time of FILE

-R, --rfc-2822
output date and time in RFC 2822 format. Example: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 12:34:56 -0600

--rfc-3339=TIMESPEC
output date and time in RFC 3339 format. TIMESPEC=‘date’, ‘seconds’, or ‘ns’ for date and time to the indicated precision. Date and time components are separated by a single space: 2006-08-07 12:34:56-06:00

-s, --set=STRING
set time described by STRING

-u, --utc, --universal
print or set Coordinated Universal Time

--help display this help and exit

--version
output version information and exit

FORMAT controls the output. The only valid option for the second form specifies Coordinated Universal Time. Interpreted sequences are:

%%
a literal %

%a
locale’s abbreviated weekday name (e.g., Sun)

%A
locale’s full weekday name (e.g., Sunday)

%b
locale’s abbreviated month name (e.g., Jan)

%B
locale’s full month name (e.g., January)

%c
locale’s date and time (e.g., Thu Mar 3 23:05:25 2005)

%C
century; like %Y, except omit last two digits (e.g., 21)

%d
day of month (e.g, 01)

%D
date; same as %m/%d/%y

%e
day of month, space padded; same as %_d

%F
full date; same as %Y-%m-%d

%g
last two digits of year of ISO week number (see %G)

%G
year of ISO week number (see %V); normally useful only with %V

%h
same as %b

%H
hour (00..23)

%I
hour (01..12)

%j
day of year (001..366)

%k
hour ( 0..23)

%l
hour ( 1..12)

%m
month (01..12)

%M
minute (00..59)

%n
a newline

%N
nanoseconds (000000000..999999999)

%p
locale’s equivalent of either AM or PM; blank if not known

%P
like %p, but lower case

%r
locale’s 12-hour clock time (e.g., 11:11:04 PM)

%R
24-hour hour and minute; same as %H:%M

%s
seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC

%S
second (00..60)

%t
a tab

%T
time; same as %H:%M:%S

%u
day of week (1..7); 1 is Monday

%U
week number of year, with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)

%V
ISO week number, with Monday as first day of week (01..53)

%w
day of week (0..6); 0 is Sunday

%W
week number of year, with Monday as first day of week (00..53)

%x
locale’s date representation (e.g., 12/31/99)

%X
locale’s time representation (e.g., 23:13:48)

%y
last two digits of year (00..99)

%Y
year

%z
+hhmm numeric timezone (e.g., -0400)

%:z
+hh:mm numeric timezone (e.g., -04:00)

%::z
+hh:mm:ss numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00:00)

%:::z numeric time zone with : to necessary precision (e.g., -04, +05:30)

%Z
alphabetic time zone abbreviation (e.g., EDT)

By default, date pads numeric fields with zeroes. The following optional flags may follow ‘%’:

-
(hyphen) do not pad the field

_
(underscore) pad with spaces

0
(zero) pad with zeros

^
use upper case if possible

#
use opposite case if possible

After any flags comes an optional field width, as a decimal number; then an optional modifier, which is either E to use the locale’s alternate representations if available, or O to use the locale’s alternate numeric symbols if available.

Environment

TZ
Specifies the timezone, unless overridden by command line parameters. If neither is specified, the setting from /etc/localtime is used.

Author

Written by David MacKenzie.

Reporting Bugs

Report bugs to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.

Copyright

Copyright © 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of the GNU General Public License <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

See Also

The full documentation for date is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and date programs are properly installed at your site, the command

info date

should give you access to the complete manual.


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