date - Display the date and time

date displays the operating system's concept of the current date and time. The following example shows the default format of the date:

Wed Feb 26 14:01:43 EST 1986

date accepts the following options:

-c

Displays the date and displays the time according to Greenwich Mean Time (Coordinated Universal Time) using CUT as the time zone name.

-u

Displays the date and displays the time according to Greenwich Mean Time (Coordinated Universal Time) using GMT as the time zone name.

If the argument to date begins with a + character, date uses format to display the date. date writes all characters in format, except for the % and the character that immediately follows it, directly to the standard output. After date exhausts the format string, it outputs a newline character. The % character introduces a special format field similar to the printf() function in the C library. date supports the following field descriptors:

%A

The full weekday name (for example, Sunday).

%a

The three-letter abbreviation for the weekday (for example, Sun).

%B

The full month name (for example, February).

%b

The three-letter abbreviation for the month name (for example, Feb).

%C

The first two digits of the year (00 to 99).

%c

The local representation of the date and time (see %D and %T).

%D

The date in the form mm/dd/yy.

%d

The two-digit day of the month as a number (01 to 31).

%e

The day of the month in a two-character, right-aligned, blank-filled field.

%H

The two-digit hour (00 to 23).

%h

The three-letter abbreviation for the month (for example, Jun).

%I

The hour in the 12-hour clock representation (01 to 12).

%j

The numeric day of the year (001 to 366).

%M

The minute (00 to 59).

%m

The month number (01 to 12).

%n

The newline character.

%p

The local equivalent of AM. or PM.

%r

The time in AM-PM notation (11:53:29 a.m.).

%S

The seconds (00 to 61). There is an allowance for two leap seconds.

%T

The time (14:53:29).

%t

A tab character.

%U

The week number in the year, with Sunday being the first day of the week (00 to 53).

%W

The week number in the year, with Monday being the first day of the week (00 to 53).

%w

The weekday number, with Sunday being 0.

%X

The local time representation (see %T).

%x

The local date representation (see %D).

%Y

The year.

%y

The two-digit year.

%Z

The time zone name (for example, EDT).

%%

A percent-sign character.

The date command also supports the following modified field descriptors to indicate a different format as specified by the locale indicated by LC_TIME. If the current locale does not support a modified descriptor, date uses the unmodified field descriptor value.

%EC

The name of the base year (period) in the alternative representation of the current locale.

%Ec

The current locale's alternative date and time representation.

%Ex

The current locale's alternative date representation.

%EY

The full alternative year representation.

%Ey

The offset from %EC (year only) in the alternative representation of the current locale.

%Od

The day of the month using the alternative numeric symbols of the current locale.

%Oe

The day of the month using the alternative numeric symbols of the current locale.

%OH

The hour (24-hour clock) using the alternative numeric symbols of the current locale.

%OI

The hour (12-hour clock) using the alternative numeric symbols of the current locale.

%OM

The minutes using the current locale's alternative numeric symbols.

%Om

The month using the current locale's alternative numeric symbols.

%OS

The seconds using the current locale's alternative numeric symbols.

%OU

The week number of the year (0-53) (with Sunday as the first day of the week) using the alternative numeric symbols of the current locale.

%OW

The week number of the year (0-53) (with Monday as the first day of the week) using the alternative numeric symbols of the current locale.

%Ow

The weekday as a number using the current locale's alternative numeric symbols (Sunday=0).

%Oy

The year (offset from %C) using the current locale's alternative numeric symbols.

date uses the following environment variables:

TZ

Gives the time zone for date to use when displaying the time. This option is ignored if you specify either the -c or the -u option.

date uses the following localization environment variables:

• LANG
• LC_ALL
• LC_CTYPE
• LC_MESSAGES
• LC_TIME
• NLSPATH

Possible error messages include:

Bad format character x

A character that follows % in the format string was not in the list of field descriptors.

No permission to set date

The system denied you the right to set the date.