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date(1) [bsd man page]

DATE(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   DATE(1)

NAME
date - print and set the date SYNOPSIS
date [-nu] [-d dst] [-t timezone] [yymmddhhmm [.ss] ] DESCRIPTION
If no arguments are given, the current date and time are printed. Providing an argument will set the desired date; only the superuser can set the date. The -d and -t flags set the kernel's values for daylight savings time and minutes west of GMT. If dst is non-zero, future calls to gettimeofday(2) will return a non-zero tz_dsttime. Timezone provides the number of minutes returned by future calls to gettimeof- day(2) in tz_minuteswest. The -u flag is used to display or set the date in GMT (universal) time. yy represents the last two digits of the year; the first mm is the month number; dd is the day number; hh is the hour number (24 hour system); the second mm is the minute num- ber; .ss is optional and represents the seconds. For example: date 8506131627 sets the date to June 13 1985, 4:27 PM. The year, month and day may be omitted; the default values will be the current ones. The system operates in GMT. Date takes care of the conversion to and from local standard and daylight-saving time. If timed(8) is running to synchronize the clocks of machines in a local area network, date sets the time globally on all those machines unless the -n option is given. FILES
/usr/adm/wtmp to record time-setting. In /usr/adm/messages, date records the name of the user setting the time. SEE ALSO
gettimeofday(2), utmp(5), timed(8), TSP: The Time Synchronization Protocol for UNIX 4.3BSD, R. Gusella and S. Zatti DIAGNOSTICS
Exit status is 0 on success, 1 on complete failure to set the date, and 2 on successfully setting the local date but failing globally. Occasionally, when timed synchronizes the time on many hosts, the setting of a new time value may require more than a few seconds. On these occasions, date prints: `Network time being set'. The message `Communication error with timed' occurs when the communication between date and timed fails. BUGS
The system attempts to keep the date in a format closely compatible with VMS. VMS, however, uses local time (rather than GMT) and does not understand daylight-saving time. Thus, if you use both UNIX and VMS, VMS will be running on GMT. 4th Berkeley Distribution March 24, 1987 DATE(1)

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DATE(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   DATE(1)

NAME
date - print or set the date and time SYNOPSIS
date [-qsu] [[MMDDYY]hhmm[ss]] [+format] OPTIONS
-q Read the date from stdin -s Set the time (implicit for -q or a date string) -u Print the date as GMT -t Use this number of seconds instead of current time EXAMPLES
date # Print the date and time date 0221921610 # Set date to Feb 21, 1992 at 4:10 p.m. DESCRIPTION
With the -q flag or a numeric argument, date sets the GMT time and date. MMDDYY refers to the month, day, and year; hhmmss refers to the hour, minute and second. Each of the six fields must be exactly two digits, no more and no less. date always display the date and time, with the default format for the system. The -u flag request GMT time instead of local time. A format may be specified with a + followed by a printf-like string with the following options: %% % character %A Name of the day %B Name of the month %D mm/dd/yy %H Decimal hour on 2 digits %I Decimal hour modulo 12 on 2 digits %M Decimal minute on 2 digits %S Decimal seconds on 2 digits %T HH:MM:SS %U Decimal week number, Sunday being first day of week %W Decimal week number, Monday being first day of week %X Same as %T %Y Decimal year on 4 digits %Z Time Zone (if any) %a Abbreviated name of the day %b Abbreviated name of the month %c Appropriate date & time (default format) %d Decimal day of the month on 2 digits %e Same as %d, but a space replaces leading 0 %h Same as %b %j Decimal dey of the year on 3 digits %m Decimal month on 2 digits %n Newline character %p AM or PM %r 12-hour clock time with AM/PM %s Number of seconds since the epoch %t Tab character %w Decimal day of the week (0=Sunday) %x Same as %D %y Decimal year on 2 digits SEE ALSO
time(2), ctime(3), readclock(8). DATE(1)
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