DATE 1L "GNU Shell Utilities" "FSF" \" -*- nroff -*-
NAME
date - print or set the system date and time
SYNOPSIS
date [-u] [-d datestr] [-s datestr] [--uct] [--universal]
[--date=datestr] [--set=datestr] [--help] [--version]
[+FORMAT] [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]
DESCRIPTION
This manual page
documents the GNU version of
date . date with no arguments prints the current time and date (in the format
of the `%c' directive described below).
If given an argument that starts with a `+', it prints the current
time and date in a format controlled by that argument, which has the
same format as the format string passed to the `strftime' function.
Except for directives that start with `%', characters in that string
are printed unchanged.
The directives are:
%
a literal %
n
a newline
t
a horizontal tab
Time fields:
%H
hour (00..23)
%I
hour (01..12)
%k
hour ( 0..23)
%l
hour ( 1..12)
%M
minute (00..59)
%p
locale's AM or PM
%r
time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)
%s
seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UCT (a nonstandard extension)
%S
second (00..61)
%T
time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)
%X
locale's time representation (%H:%M:%S)
%Z
time zone (e.g., EDT), or nothing if no time zone is determinable
Date fields:
%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)
%d
day of month (01..31)
%D
date (
mm/
dd/
yy)
%h
same as %b
%j
day of year (001..366)
%m
month (01..12)
%U
week number of year with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)
%w
day of week (0..6) with 0 corresponding to 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...)
By default,
date pads numeric fields with zeroes.
GNU
date recognizes the following nonstandard numeric modifiers:
-
(hyphen) do not pad the field
_
(underscore) pad the field with spaces
If given an argument that does not start with `+',
date sets the system clock to the time and date specified by that argument.
The argument must consist entirely of digits, which have the following
meaning:
MM
month
DD
day within month
hh
hour
mm
minute
CC
first two digits of year (optional)
YY
last two digits of year (optional)
ss
second (optional)
Only the superuser can set the system clock.
OPTIONS
"-d datestr, --date datestr" Display the time and date specified in
datestr , which can be in almost any common format. The display is in
the default output format, or if an argument starting with `+' is
given to
date , in the format specified by that argument.
"--help" Print a usage message on standard output and exit successfully.
"-s datestr, --set datestr" Set the time and date to
datestr , which can be in almost any common format.
It can contain month names, timezones, `am' and `pm', etc.
"-u, --universal" Print or set the time and date in Universal Coordinated Time (also
known as Greenwich Mean Time) instead of in local (wall clock) time.
"--version" Print version information on standard output then exit successfully.
EXAMPLES
To print the date of the day before yesterday
date --date \'2 days ago\'
To print the date of the day three months and one day hence
date --date \'3 months 1 day\'
To print the day of year of Christmas in the current year
date --date \'25 Dec\' +%j
To print the current date in a format including the full month name and
the day of the month
date \'+%B %d\'
But this may not be what you want because for the first nine days
of the month, the \`%d\' expands to a zero-padded two-digit field,
for example \`date -d 1-may \'+%B %d\'\' will print
\`May 01\'.
To print the same date but without the leading zero for one-digit
days of month, you can use the nonstandard \`-\' modifier to suppress
the padding altogether.
date -d 1-may \'+%B %-d\'