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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',  'sec‐
              onds',  or  'ns'  for date and time to the indicated preci‐
              sion.  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; like %+4Y-%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

       +      pad  with  zeros,  and  put '+' before future years with >4
              digits

       ^      use upper case if possible

       #      use opposite case if possible

       After any flags comes an optional field width, as a  decimal  num‐
       ber;  then  an  optional  modifier,  which  is either E to use the
       locale's alternate 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, relative 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.

ENVIRONMENT
       TZ     Specifies the timezone, unless overridden by  command  line
              parameters.   If  neither  is  specified,  the setting from
              /etc/localtime is used.

AUTHOR
       Written by David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS
       GNU  coreutils  online  help:  <https://www.gnu.org/software/core‐
       utils/>
       Report    any   translation   bugs   to   <https://translationpro‐
       ject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright © 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.   License  GPLv3+:
       GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://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 <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/date>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) date invocation'

GNU coreutils 8.32              April 2020                        DATE(1)