DATE(1)

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.

-d, --date=STRING
    display time described by STRING, not `now'

-f, --file=DATEFILE
    like --date once for each line of DATEFILE

-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', `seconds', 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

--help
    display this help and exit

--version
    output version information and exit

FORMAT controls the output. The only valid option for the second form specifies Coordinated Universal Time. 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., 21)

%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 ( 0..23)

%l  hour ( 1..12)

%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 timezone (e.g., -0400)

%:z +hh:mm numeric timezone (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 alternate 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 parameters. If neither is specified, the setting from /etc/localtime is used.

AUTHOR
Written by David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.

COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of the GNU General Public License <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. 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 date

should give you access to the complete manual.