DATE

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

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'

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

OPTIONS

EXAMPLES