DATE linux command manual

DATE(1)                          User Commands                         DATE(1)



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

       -ITIMESPEC, --iso-8601[=TIMESPEC]
              output date/time in ISO 8601 format.  TIMESPEC='date' for  date
              only, 'hours', 'minutes', or 'seconds' for date and time to the
              indicated precision.  --iso-8601 without TIMESPEC  defaults  to
              'date'.

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

       -R, --rfc-2822
              output RFC-2822 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.  Interpreted sequences are:

       %%     a literal %

       %a     locale's abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)

       %A     locale's full weekday name, variable length (Sunday..Saturday)

       %b     locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)

       %B     locale's full month name, variable length (January..December)

       %c     locale's date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 EST 1989)

       %C     century (year divided by  100  and  truncated  to  an  integer)
              [00-99]

       %d     day of month (01..31)

       %D     date (mm/dd/yy)

       %e     day of month, blank padded ( 1..31)

       %F     same as %Y-%m-%d

       %g     the 2-digit year corresponding to the %V week number

       %G     the 4-digit year corresponding to the %V week number

       %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 upper case AM or PM indicator (blank in many locales)

       %P     locale's lower case am or pm indicator (blank in many locales)

       %r     time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)

       %R     time, 24-hour (hh:mm)

       %s     seconds since '00:00:00 1970-01-01 UTC' (a GNU extension)

       %S     second (00..60); the 60 is necessary to accommodate a leap sec-
              ond

       %t     a horizontal tab

       %T     time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)

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

       %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)

       %X     locale's time representation (%H:%M:%S)

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

       %Y     year (1970...)

       %z     RFC-2822 style numeric timezone (-0500) (a  nonstandard  exten-
              sion)

       %Z     time  zone  (e.g.,  EDT),  or nothing if no time zone is deter-
              minable

       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  command  line
              parameters.    If   neither  is  specified,  the  setting  from
              /etc/localtime is used.

AUTHOR
       Written by David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS
       Report bugs to .

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
       This is free software; see the source for copying  conditions.   There
       is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICU-
       LAR 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 coreutils date

       should give you access to the complete manual.



date (coreutils) 5.2.1            March 2004                          DATE(1)