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date - print or set the system date and time
date [OPTION]...
[+FORMAT]
date [-u|--utc|--universal] [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]
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
- --iso-8601[=TIMESPEC] output date/time in ISO 8601 format.
- TIMESPEC=‘date’ for date only (the default), ‘hours’, ‘minutes’, ‘seconds’, or
‘ns’ for date and time to the indicated precision.
- -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 second
- %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 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
Written by David MacKenzie.
Report bugs to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.
Copyright © 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 PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
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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