Manpage of DATE

DATE

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: May 2006
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NAME

date - print or set the system date and time

SYNOPSIS

date [OPTION]... [&subreq=y&showman=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
--rfc-3339=TIMESPEC: output date and time in RFC 3339 format. TIMESPEC=`date', `seconds', or `ns' for date and time to the indicated precision.
-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: &subreq=y&showman=hhmm numeric timezone (e.g., -0400)
%:z: &subreq=y&showman=hh:mm numeric timezone (e.g., -04:00)
%::z: &subreq=y&showman=hh:mm:ss numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00:00)
%:::z: numeric time zone with : to necessary precision (e.g., -04, &subreq=y&showman=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 © 2006 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.

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Time: 16:10:47 GMT, August 20, 2008