Web | This Site

Unix for Beginners
Unix Shell Programming
Advanced Unix
Unix Useful References
Unix Useful Resources
Selected Reading
© 2011 TutorialsPoint.COM

| Home |  | References |  | Discussion Forums |  | About TP

# date - Unix, Linux Command

# 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.

Tag | Description
--- | ---
-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 | +hhmm numeric timezone (e.g., -0400)
%:z | +hh:mm numeric timezone (e.g., -04:00)
%::z | +hh:mm:ss numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00:00)
%:::z | numeric time zone with : to necessary precision (e.g., -04, +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

Tag | Description
--- | ---
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.

# SEE ALSO

date is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and date programs are properly installed at your site, the command

Tag | Description
--- | ---
| info date

should give you access to the complete manual.

Advertisement

Online Image Processing

Indian Baby Names