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.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options
too.
-d, date=STRING
display time described by STRING, not 'now'
-f, file=DATEFILE
like date once for each line of DATEFILE
-I[TIMESPEC], 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 date and time in RFC 2822 format. Example: Mon, 07 Aug
2006 12:34:56 -0600
rfc-3339=TIMESPEC
output date and time in RFC 3339 format. TIMESPEC='date', 'sec‐
onds', or 'ns' for date and time to the indicated precision.
Date and time components are separated by a single space:
2006-08-07 12:34:56-06:00
-s, set=STRING
set time described by STRING
-u, utc, universal
print or set Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
help display this help and exit
version
output version information and exit
FORMAT controls the output. 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., 20)
%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, space padded ( 0..23); same as %H
%l hour, space padded ( 1..12); same as %I
%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 time zone (e.g., -0400)
%:z +hh:mm numeric time zone (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 alter‐
nate representations if available, or O to use the locale's alternate
numeric symbols if available.
ENVIRONMENT
TZ Specifies the timezone, unless overridden by command line param‐
eters. If neither is specified, the setting from /etc/localtime
is used.
EXAMPLES
Convert seconds since the epoch (1970-01-01 UTC) to a date
$ date date='@2147483647'
Show the time on the west coast of the US (use tzselect(1) to find TZ)
$ TZ='America/LosAngeles' date
Show the local time for 9AM next Friday on the west coast of the US
$ date date='TZ="America/LosAngeles" 09:00 next Fri'
GNU coreutils online help:
Report date translation bugs to
DATE STRING
The date=STRING is a mostly free format human readable date string
such as "Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:21:42 -0800" or "2004-02-29 16:21:42" or
even "next Thursday". A date string may contain items indicating cal‐
endar date, time of day, time zone, day of week, relative time, rela‐
tive date, and numbers. An empty string indicates the beginning of the
day. The date string format is more complex than is easily documented
here but is fully described in the info documentation.
AUTHOR
Written by David MacKenzie.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU
GPL version 3 or later .
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
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 coreutils 'date invocation'
should give you access to the complete manual.
GNU coreutils 8.22 October 2018 DATE(1)