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 asfirst 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
- (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.
Author
Written by David MacKenzie.
Reporting Bugs
Report bugs to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html >
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. 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.