1DATE(1) General Commands Manual DATE(1) 2 3NAME 4 date - show and set date and time 5 6SYNOPSIS 7 date [ -u ] [ -c ] [ -r seconds ] [ +format ] [ [yyyy]mmddhhmm[yy][.ss] 8 ] 9 10DESCRIPTION 11 The date command without arguments writes the date and time to the 12 standard output in the form 13 Wed Mar 8 14:54:40 EST 1989 14 with EST replaced by the local time zone's abbreviation (or by the 15 abbreviation for the time zone specified in the TZ environment variable 16 if set). The exact output format depends on the locale. 17 18 If a command-line argument starts with a plus sign ("+"), the rest of 19 the argument is used as a format that controls what appears in the 20 output. In the format, when a percent sign ("%" appears, it and the 21 character after it are not output, but rather identify part of the date 22 or time to be output in a particular way (or identify a special 23 character to output): 24 25 Sample output Explanation 26 %a Wed Abbreviated weekday name* 27 %A Wednesday Full weekday name* 28 %b Mar Abbreviated month name* 29 %B March Full month name* 30 %c Wed Mar 08 14:54:40 1989 Date and time* 31 %C 19 Century 32 %d 08 Day of month (always two digits) 33 %D 03/08/89 Month/day/year (eight characters) 34 %e 8 Day of month (leading zero blanked) 35 %h Mar Abbreviated month name* 36 %H 14 24-hour-clock hour (two digits) 37 %I 02 12-hour-clock hour (two digits) 38 %j 067 Julian day number (three digits) 39 %k 2 12-hour-clock hour (leading zero blanked) 40 %l 14 24-hour-clock hour (leading zero blanked) 41 %m 03 Month number (two digits) 42 %M 54 Minute (two digits) 43 %n \n newline character 44 %p PM AM/PM designation 45 %r 02:54:40 PM Hour:minute:second AM/PM designation 46 %R 14:54 Hour:minute 47 %S 40 Second (two digits) 48 %t \t tab character 49 %T 14:54:40 Hour:minute:second 50 %U 10 Sunday-based week number (two digits) 51 %w 3 Day number (one digit, Sunday is 0) 52 %W 10 Monday-based week number (two digits) 53 %x 03/08/89 Date* 54 %X 14:54:40 Time* 55 %y 89 Last two digits of year 56 %Y 1989 Year in full 57 %z -0500 Numeric time zone 58 %Z EST Time zone abbreviation 59 %+ Wed Mar 8 14:54:40 EST 1989 Default output format* 60 * The exact output depends on the locale. 61 62 If a character other than one of those shown above appears after a 63 percent sign in the format, that following character is output. All 64 other characters in the format are copied unchanged to the output; a 65 newline character is always added at the end of the output. 66 67 In Sunday-based week numbering, the first Sunday of the year begins 68 week 1; days preceding it are part of "week 0". In Monday-based week 69 numbering, the first Monday of the year begins week 1. 70 71 To set the date, use a command line argument with one of the following 72 forms: 73 1454 24-hour-clock hours (first two digits) and minutes 74 081454 Month day (first two digits), hours, and minutes 75 03081454 Month (two digits, January is 01), month day, hours, minutes 76 8903081454 Year, month, month day, hours, minutes 77 0308145489 Month, month day, hours, minutes, year 78 (on System V-compatible systems) 79 030814541989 Month, month day, hours, minutes, four-digit year 80 198903081454 Four-digit year, month, month day, hours, minutes 81 If the century, year, month, or month day is not given, the current 82 value is used. Any of the above forms may be followed by a period and 83 two digits that give the seconds part of the new time; if no seconds 84 are given, zero is assumed. 85 86 These options are available: 87 88 -u or -c 89 Use Universal Time when setting and showing the date and time. 90 91 -r seconds 92 Output the date that corresponds to seconds past the epoch of 93 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, where seconds should be an integer, 94 either decimal, octal (leading 0), or hexadecimal (leading 0x), 95 preceded by an optional sign. 96 97FILES 98 /etc/localtime local timezone file 99 /usr/lib/locale/L/LC_TIME description of time locale L 100 /usr/share/zoneinfo timezone information directory 101 /usr/share/zoneinfo/posixrules used with POSIX-style TZ's 102 /usr/share/zoneinfo/GMT for UTC leap seconds 103 104 If /usr/share/zoneinfo/GMT is absent, UTC leap seconds are loaded from 105 /usr/share/zoneinfo/posixrules. 106 107 DATE(1) 108