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'

       --debug
              annotate the parsed date, and warn about questionable usage to stderr

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

       -I[FMT], --iso-8601[=FMT]
              output  date/time  in  ISO 8601 format.  FMT='date' for date only (the default), 'hours', 'minutes', 'seconds', or 'ns' for date and
              time to the indicated precision.  Example: 2006-08-14T02:34:56-06:00

       -R, --rfc-email
              output date and time in RFC 5322 format.  Example: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 02:34:56 -0600

       --rfc-3339=FMT
              output date/time in RFC 3339 format.  FMT='date', 'seconds', or 'ns' for  date  and  time  to  the  indicated  precision.   Example:
              2006-08-14 02:34:56-06:00

       -r, --reference=FILE
              display the last modification time of FILE

       -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

       %q     quarter of year (1..4)

       %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 calendar 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  docu-
       mented 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) 2017 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 8.28                                                 January 2018                                                            DATE(1)