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.

       Mandatory  arguments  to  long  options are mandatory for short options
       too.

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

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

       -I[TIMESPEC], --iso-8601[=TIMESPEC]
              output date/time in ISO 8601 format.  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 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', 'sec-
              onds', 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 (UTC)

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
              output version information and exit

       FORMAT controls the output.  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., 20)

       %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, space padded ( 0..23); same as %_H

       %l     hour, space padded ( 1..12); same as %_I

       %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 time zone (e.g., -0400)

       %:z    +hh:mm numeric time zone (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 alter-
       nate representations if available, or O to use the  locale's  alternate
       numeric symbols if available.

EXAMPLES
       Convert seconds since the epoch (1970-01-01 UTC) to a date

              $ date --date='@2147483647'

       Show the time on the west coast of the US (use tzselect(1) to find TZ)

              $ TZ='America/Los_Angeles' date

       Show the local time for 9AM next Friday on the west coast of the US

              $ date --date='TZ="America/Los_Angeles" 09:00 next Fri'

DATE STRING
       The  --date=STRING  is  a mostly free format human readable date string
       such as "Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:21:42 -0800" or "2004-02-29  16:21:42"  or
       even  "next Thursday".  A date string may contain items indicating cal-
       endar date, time of day, time zone, day of week, relative  time,  rela-
       tive date, and numbers.  An empty string indicates the beginning of the
       day.  The date string format is more complex than is easily  documented
       here but is fully described in the info documentation.

AUTHOR
       Written by David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS
       GNU coreutils online help: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report date translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright  (C) 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+: GNU
       GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This is free software: you are free  to  change  and  redistribute  it.
       There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO
       Full documentation at: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/date>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) date invocation'



GNU coreutils 8.23                March 2015                           DATE(1)
