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. TIME
SPEC=`date' for date only, `hours', `minutes', or
`seconds' for date and time to the indicated preci
sion. --iso-8601 without TIMESPEC defaults to
`date'.
-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 (Jan
%F same as %Y-%m-%d
%g the 2-digit year corresponding to the %V week num
ber
%G the 4-digit year corresponding to the %V week num
ber
%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)
%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
AUTHOR
Written by David MacKenzie.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2003 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.
date (coreutils) 4.5.8 February 2003 DATE(1)
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