date(1) 							   User Commands							   date(1)

NAME

       date - write the date and time

SYNOPSIS

       /usr/bin/date [-u] [ +format]

       /usr/bin/date [ -a  [-]sss.fff]

       /usr/bin/date [-u] [ [mmdd] HHMM |  mmddHHMM [cc] yy]  [.SS]

       /usr/xpg4/bin/date [-u] [ +format]

       /usr/xpg4/bin/date [ -a	[-]sss.fff]

       /usr/xpg4/bin/date [-u] [ [mmdd] HHMM |	mmddHHMM [cc] yy]  [.SS]

DESCRIPTION

       The  date utility writes the date and time to standard output or attempts to set the system date and time. By default, the current date and
       time is written.

       Specifications of native language translations of month and weekday names are supported. The month and weekday names used  for  a  language
       are based on the locale specified by the environment variable LC_TIME. See environ(5).

       The following is the default form for the "C" locale:

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

       For example,

       Fri Dec 23 10:10:42 EST 1988

OPTIONS

       The following options are supported:

       -a [-]sss.fff   Slowly  adjust the time by sss.fff seconds (fff represents fractions of a second). This adjustment can be positive or nega-
		       tive. The system's clock is sped up or slowed down until it has drifted by the number of seconds specified. Only the super-
		       user may adjust the time.

       -u	       Display	(or set) the date in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT--universal time), bypassing the normal conversion to (or from) local
		       time.

OPERANDS

       The following operands are supported:

       +format	       If the argument begins with +, the output of date is the result of passing format and the current time to strftime().  date
		       uses  the conversion specifications listed on the strftime(3C) manual page, with the conversion specification for %C deter-
		       mined by whether /usr/bin/date or /usr/xpg4/bin/date is used:

		       /usr/bin/date	       Locale's date and time representation. This is the default output for date.

		       /usr/xpg4/bin/date      Century (a year divided by 100 and truncated to an integer) as a decimal number [00-99].

		       The string is always terminated with a NEWLINE. An argument containing blanks must be quoted; see the EXAMPLES section.

       mm	       Month number

       dd	       Day number in the month

       HH	       Hour number (24 hour system)

       MM	       Minute number

       SS	       Second number

       cc	       Century (a year divided by 100 and truncated to an integer) as a decimal number [00-99]. For example, cc is 19 for the year
		       1988 and 20 for the year 2007.

       yy	       Last  two  digits of the year number. If century (cc) is not specified, then values in the range 69-99 shall refer to years
		       1969 to 1999 inclusive, and values in the range 00-68 shall refer to years 2000 to 2068, inclusive.

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

       example% date 10080045

       sets the date to Oct 8, 12:45 a.m. 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 the super-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 environ(5).

EXAMPLES

       Example 1: Generating Output

       The following command:

       example% date '+DATE: %m/%d/%y%nTIME:%H:%M:%S'

       generates as output

       DATE: 08/01/76

       TIME: 14:45:05

       Example 2: Setting the Current Time

       The following command sets the current time to 12:34:56:

       example# date 1234.56

       Example 3: Setting Another Time and Date in Greenwich Mean Time

       The following command sets the date to January 1st, 12:30 am, 2000:

       example# date -u 010100302000

       This is displayed as:

       Thu Jan 01 00:30:00 GMT 2000

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       See  environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of date: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_TIME,
       LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.

       TZ	Determine the timezone in which the time and date are written, unless the -u option is specified. If the TZ variable  is  not  set
		and the -u is not specified, the system default timezone is used.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values are returned:

       0	Successful completion.

       >0	An error occurred.

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

   /usr/bin/date
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWcsu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |CSI			     |enabled			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

   /usr/xpg4/bin/date
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWxcu4			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |CSI			     |enabled			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Interface Stability	     |Standard			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       strftime(3C), attributes(5), environ(5), standards(5)

DIAGNOSTICS

       no permission	       You are not the super-user and you tried to change the date.

       bad conversion	       The date set is syntactically incorrect.

NOTES

       If  you	attempt  to set the current date to one of the dates that the standard and alternate time zones change (for example, the date that
       daylight time is starting or ending), and you attempt to set the time to a time in the interval between the end of standard  time  and  the
       beginning of the alternate time (or the end of the alternate time and the beginning of standard time), the results are unpredictable.

       Using  the  date command from within windowing environments to change the date can lead to unpredictable results and is unsafe. It can also
       be unsafe in the multi-user mode, that is, outside of a windowing system, if the date is changed rapidly back and  forth.  The  recommended
       method of changing the date is 'date -a'.

       Setting the system time or allowing the system time to progress beyond 03:14:07 UTC Jan 19, 2038 is not supported on Solaris.

SunOS 5.10							    11 May 2004 							   date(1)