Linux / Unix Command: date

Command Library

NAME

SYNOPSIS

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. TIMESPEC=`date' for date only, `hours', `minutes', or `seconds' for date and time to the indicated precision. --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

%%

a literal %

%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)

%C

century (year divided by 100 and truncated to an integer) [00-99]

%d

day of month (01..31)

%D

date (mm/dd/yy)

%e

day of month, blank padded ( 1..31)

%F

same as %Y-%m-%d

%g

the 2-digit year corresponding to the %V week number

%G

the 4-digit year corresponding to the %V week number

%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)

%V

week number of year with Monday as first day of week (01..53)

%w

day of week (0..6); 0 represents Sunday

%W

week number of year with Monday as first day of week (00..53)

%x

locale's date representation (mm/dd/yy)

%X

locale's time representation (%H:%M:%S)

%y

last two digits of year (00..99)

%Y

year (1970...)

%z

RFC-822 style numeric timezone (-0500) (a nonstandard 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

SEE ALSO

info date

should give you access to the complete manual.

Important: Use the man command (% man) to see how a command is used on your particular computer.

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