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
-I, --iso-8601[=TIMESPEC] output an ISO-8601 compliant
date/time string.
TIMESPEC=`date' (or missing) for date only,
`hours', `minutes', or `seconds' for date and time
to the indicated precision.
-r, --reference=FILE
display the last modification time of FILE
-R, --rfc-822
output RFC-822 compliant date string
-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. Inter
preted sequences are:
%% a literal %
%a locale's abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)
%A locale's full weekday name, variable length (Sun
day..Saturday)
%b locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
%B locale's full month name, variable length
%c locale's date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 EST
1989)
%d day of month (01..31)
%D date (mm/dd/yy)
%e day of month, blank padded ( 1..31)
%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
%p locale's AM or PM
%r time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)
%s seconds since `00:00:00 1970-01-01 UTC' (a GNU
extension)
%S second (00..60)
%t a horizontal tab
%T time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)
%U week number of year with Sunday as first day of
week (00..53)
%V week number of year with Monday as first day of
week (01..53)
%w day of week (0..6); 0 represents Sunday
%W week number of year with Monday as first day of
week (00..53)
%x locale's date representation (mm/dd/yy)
%y last two digits of year (00..99)
%Y year (1970...)
%z RFC-822 style numeric timezone (-0500) (a nonstan
dard extension)
%Z time zone (e.g., EDT), or nothing if no time zone
is determinable
By default, date pads numeric fields with zeroes. GNU
date recognizes the following modifiers between `%' and a
numeric directive.
`-' (hyphen) do not pad the field `_' (underscore)
pad the field with spaces
ENVIRONMENT
TZ Specifies the timezone, unless overridden by com
mand line parameters. If neither is specified, the
setting from /etc/localtime is used.
AUTHOR
Written by David MacKenzie.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <bug-sh-utils@gnu.org>.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying condi
tions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY
or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
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.
Man(1) output converted with
man2html