date(1)

Synopsis

date [-u] [[mmdd]HHMM | mmddHHMM[[cc]yy]]

date [-a [-]sss.fff]

Description

Supplementary code set characters in + format (see below) are recognized and displayed according to the locale specified in the LC_CTYPE environment variable (see LANG on environ(5)). Month and weekday names are recognized according to the locale specified in the LC_TIME environment variable, as described below.

-a [-]sss.fff

Slowly adjust the time by sss.fff seconds (fff represents fractions of a second). This adjustment can be positive or negative. The system's clock will be sped up or slowed down until it has drifted by the number of seconds specified.

-u

Display (or set) the date in Coordinated Universal Time or Greenwich Mean Time, bypassing the normal conversion to (or from) local time.

mm

is the month number

dd

is the day number in the month

HH

is the hour number (24 hour system)

MM

is the minute number

cc

is the century minus one

yy

is the last 2 digits of the year number

The month, day, year, and century may be omitted; the current values are supplied as defaults. For example:

date 10080045

sets the date to Oct 8, 12:45 AM. The current year is the default because no year is supplied. The system operates in GMT. date takes care of the conversion to and from local standard and daylight time. Only a privileged user may change the date. After successfully setting the date and time, date displays the new date according to the default format. The date command uses TZ to determine the correct time zone information (see LANG on environ(5)).

+ format

If the argument begins with +, the output of date is under the control of the user. Each Field Descriptor is preceded by % and is replaced in the output by its corresponding value. A single ``%'' is encoded by %%. All other characters are copied to the output without change. The string is always terminated with a new-line character. If the argument contains embedded blanks it must be quoted (see the ``Example'' section). Supplementary code set characters may be used in format.

As noted, month and weekday names are recognized according to the locale specified in the LC_TIME environment variable (see LANG on environ(5)). The names are taken from a file whose format is specified in strftime(3C). This file also defines country-specific date and time formats such as %c, which specifies the default date format. The following form is the default for %c:

   %a %b %e %T %Z %Y

Field Descriptors (must be preceded by a ``%''):

a

abbreviated weekday name

A

full weekday name

b

abbreviated month name

B

full month name

c

country-specific date and time format

C

century as a decimal integer (equivalent to the year divided by 100)

d

day of month - 01 to 31

D

date as %m/%d/%y

e

day of month - 1 to 31 (single digits are preceded by a blank)

h

abbreviated month name (alias for %b)

H

hour - 00 to 23

I

hour - 01 to 12

j

day of year - 001 to 366

m

month of year - 01 to 12

M

minute - 00 to 59

n

insert a new-line character

p

string containing ante-meridian or post-meridian indicator (by default, AM or PM)

r

time as %I:%M:%S %p

R

time as %H:%M

S

second - 00 to 61, allows for leap seconds

t

insert a tab character

T

time as %H:%M:%S

u

weekday as a decimal number (1 for Monday - 7 for Sunday)

U

week number of year (Sunday as the first day of the week) - 00 to 53; all days before the first Sunday in the new year are considered to be in week 0

V

week number of year (Monday as the first day of the week) - 00 to 53; the week of January 1 is week 1 if it has more than three days in the new year, otherwise, it is week 53 of the previous year and the next week is week 1

w

day of week - Sunday = 0

W

week number of year (Monday as the first day of the week) - 00 to 53; all days before the first Sunday in the new year are considered to be in week 0

x

country-specific date format

X

country-specific time format

y

year within century - 00 to 99

Y

year as ccyy (4 digits)

Z

abbreviated timezone name

%

a percent sign

Modified Field Descriptors (must be preceded by a ``%''):

Ec

Alternate appropriate date and time representation.

EC

Name of the base year (period) in locale's alternate representation.

Ex

Locale's alternate date representation.

EX

Locale's alternate time representation.

Ey

Offset from %EC (year only) in locale's alternate representation.

EY

Full alternate year representation.

Od

Day of month using locale's alternate numeric symbols.

Oe

Day of month using locale's alternate numeric symbols.

OH

Hour (24 hr clock) using locale's alternate numeric symbols.

OI

Hour (12 hr clock) using locale's alternate numeric symbols.

Om

Month using locale's alternate numeric symbols.

OM

Minutes using locale's alternate numeric symbols.

OS

Seconds using locale's alternate numeric symbols.

Ou

Weekday as a number in the locale's alternate representation (Monday = 1).

OU

Week number of year (Sunday is 1st day of week) using locale's alternate numeric symbols.

OV

Week number of the year (rules as for %V) using the locale's alternate numeric symbols.

Ow

Week day as number in locale's alternate representation (Sunday = 0).

OW

Week number of year (Monday is 1st day of week) using locale's alternate numeric symbols.

Oy

Year (offset from %C) in alternate representation.

Usage

Examples

generates as output:

DATE: 08/01/76
TIME: 14:45:05

Errors

UX:date:ERROR:No permission

You are not a privileged user and you try to change the date.

UX:date:ERROR:bad conversion

The date set is syntactically incorrect.

Files

/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/uxcore.abi

language-specific message file (see LANG on environ(5)).

References