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

-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-2822
    output RFC-2822 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

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 (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-2822 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

AUTHOR
Written by David MacKenzie.

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

COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

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

should give you access to the complete manual.