DATE(1)                  User Commands                  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

       --iso-8601[=TIMESPEC] output date/time in ISO 8601  for-
       mat.
              TIMESPEC=`date'  for  date  only  (the  default),
              `hours',  `minutes',  `seconds', or `ns' for date
              and time to the indicated precision.

       -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 (Sun-
              day..Saturday)

       %b     locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)

       %B     locale's  full  month name, variable length (Jan-
              uary..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 accommo-
              date 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 non-
              standard 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 `_' (under-
              score) pad the field with spaces

AUTHOR
       Written by David MacKenzie.

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

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
       This is free software; see the source for copying condi-
       tions.  There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABIL-
       ITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

SEE ALSO
       The full documentation for date is maintained as a  Tex-
       info 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.



date 5.3.0               November 2004                  DATE(1)