DATE(1L)

NAME
date - print or set the system date and time

SYNOPSIS
date [-u] [-s new-date] [+FORMAT] [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]

DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents the GNU version of date. date with no arguments prints the current time and date (in the format of the `%c' directive described below). If given an argument that starts with a `+', it prints the current time and date in a format controlled by that argument, which has the same format as the format string passed to the `strftime' function. Except for directives that start with `%', characters in that string are printed unchanged.

The directives are:

%   a literal %

n   a newline

t   a horizontal tab

Time fields:

%H  hour (00..23)

%I  hour (00..12)

%M  minute (00..59)

%p  locale's AM or PM

%r  time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)

%S  second (00..61)

%T  time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)

%X  locale's time representation (%H:%M:%S)

%Z  time zone (e.g., EDT), or nothing if no time zone is determinable

Date fields:

%a  locale's abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)

%A  locale's full weekday name, variable length (Sunday..Saturday)

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

%B  locale's full month name, variable length (January..December)

%c  locale's date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 EST 1989)

%d  day of month (01..31)

%D  date (mm/dd/yy)

%h  same as %b

%j  day of year (001..366)

%m  month (01..12)

%U  week number of year with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)

%w  day of week (0..6)

%W  week number of year with Monday as first day of week (00..53)

%x  locale's date representation (mm/dd/yy)

%y  last two digits of year (00..99)

%Y  year (1970...)

If given an argument that does not start with `+', date sets the system clock to the time and date specified by that argument. The argument must consist entirely of digits, which have the following meaning:

MM  month

DD  day within month

hh  hour

mm  minute

CC  first two digits of year (optional)

YY  last two digits of year (optional)

ss  second (optional)

Only the superuser can set the system clock.

  OPTIONS

-s new-date
    Set the time and date to new-date, which can be in almost any common format. It can contain month names, timezones, `am' and `pm', etc.

-u  Print or set the time and date in Universal Coordinated Time (also known as Greenwich Mean Time) instead of in local (wall clock) time.