DATE(1) BSD General Commands Manual DATE(1) NNAAMMEE ddaattee -- display or set date and time SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS ddaattee [--jjuu] [--rr _s_e_c_o_n_d_s] [--vv [++|--]_v_a_l[_y_m_w_d_H_M_S]] _._._. [++_o_u_t_p_u_t___f_m_t] ddaattee [--jjnnuu] [[[_m_m]_d_d]_H_H]_M_M[[_c_c]_y_y][_._s_s] ddaattee [--jjnnuu] --ff _i_n_p_u_t___f_m_t _n_e_w___d_a_t_e [++_o_u_t_p_u_t___f_m_t] ddaattee [--dd _d_s_t] [--tt _m_i_n_u_t_e_s___w_e_s_t] DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN When invoked without arguments, the ddaattee utility displays the current date and time. Otherwise, depending on the options specified, ddaattee will set the date and time or print it in a user-defined way. The ddaattee utility displays the date and time read from the kernel clock. When used to set the date and time, both the kernel clock and the hard- ware clock are updated. Only the superuser may set the date, and if the system securelevel (see securelevel(8)) is greater than 1, the time may not be changed by more than 1 second. The options are as follows: --dd _d_s_t Set the kernel's value for daylight saving time. If _d_s_t is non- zero, future calls to gettimeofday(2) will return a non-zero for _t_z___d_s_t_t_i_m_e. --ff Use _i_n_p_u_t___f_m_t as the format string to parse the _n_e_w___d_a_t_e provided rather than using the default [[[_m_m]_d_d]_H_H]_M_M[[_c_c]_y_y][_._s_s] format. Parsing is done using strptime(3). --jj Do not try to set the date. This allows you to use the --ff flag in addition to the ++ option to convert one date format to another. --nn By default, if the timed(8) daemon is running, ddaattee sets the time on all of the machines in the local group. The --nn option sup- presses this behavior and causes the time to be set only on the current machine. --rr _s_e_c_o_n_d_s Print the date and time represented by _s_e_c_o_n_d_s, where _s_e_c_o_n_d_s is the number of seconds since the Epoch (00:00:00 UTC, January 1, 1970; see time(3)), and can be specified in decimal, octal, or hex. --tt _m_i_n_u_t_e_s___w_e_s_t Set the system's value for minutes west of GMT. _m_i_n_u_t_e_s___w_e_s_t specifies the number of minutes returned in _t_z___m_i_n_u_t_e_s_w_e_s_t by future calls to gettimeofday(2). --uu Display or set the date in UTC (Coordinated Universal) time. --vv Adjust (i.e., take the current date and display the result of the adjustment; not actually set the date) the second, minute, hour, month day, week day, month or year according to _v_a_l. If _v_a_l is preceded with a plus or minus sign, the date is adjusted forwards or backwards according to the remaining string, otherwise the relevant part of the date is set. The date can be adjusted as many times as required using these flags. Flags are processed in the order given. When setting values (rather than adjusting them), seconds are in the range 0-59, minutes are in the range 0-59, hours are in the range 0-23, month days are in the range 1-31, week days are in the range 0-6 (Sun-Sat), months are in the range 1-12 (Jan-Dec) and years are in the range 80-38 or 1980-2038. If _v_a_l is numeric, one of either _y, _m, _w, _d, _H, _M or _S must be used to specify which part of the date is to be adjusted. The week day or month may be specified using a name rather than a number. If a name is used with the plus (or minus) sign, the date will be put forwards (or backwards) to the next (previous) date that matches the given week day or month. This will not adjust the date, if the given week day or month is the same as the current one. When a date is adjusted to a specific value or in units greater than hours, daylight savings time considerations are ignored. Adjustments in units of hours or less honor daylight saving time. So, assuming the current date is March 26, 0:30 and that the DST adjustment means that the clock goes forward at 01:00 to 02:00, using --vv +1H will adjust the date to March 26, 2:30. Likewise, if the date is October 29, 0:30 and the DST adjustment means that the clock goes back at 02:00 to 01:00, using --vv +3H will be nec- essary to reach October 29, 2:30. When the date is adjusted to a specific value that does not actu- ally exist (for example March 26, 1:30 BST 2000 in the Europe/London timezone), the date will be silently adjusted for- wards in units of one hour until it reaches a valid time. When the date is adjusted to a specific value that occurs twice (for example October 29, 1:30 2000), the resulting timezone will be set so that the date matches the earlier of the two times. Adjusting the date by months is inherently ambiguous because a month is a unit of variable length depending on the current date. This kind of date adjustment is applied in the most intuitive way. First of all, ddaattee tries to preserve the day of the month. If it is impossible because the target month is shorter than the present one, the last day of the target month will be the result. For example, using --vv +1m on May 31 will adjust the date to June 30, while using the same option on January 30 will result in the date adjusted to the last day of February. This approach is also believed to make the most sense for shell scripting. Neverthe- less, be aware that going forth and back by the same number of months may take you to a different date. Refer to the examples below for further details. An operand with a leading plus (`+') sign signals a user-defined format string which specifies the format in which to display the date and time. The format string may contain any of the conversion specifications described in the strftime(3) manual page, as well as any arbitrary text. A newline (`\n') character is always output after the characters speci- fied by the format string. The format string for the default display is ``+%+''. If an operand does not have a leading plus sign, it is interpreted as a value for setting the system's notion of the current date and time. The canonical representation for setting the date and time is: _c_c Century (either 19 or 20) prepended to the abbreviated year. _y_y Year in abbreviated form (e.g., 89 for 1989, 06 for 2006). _m_m Numeric month, a number from 1 to 12. _d_d Day, a number from 1 to 31. _H_H Hour, a number from 0 to 23. _M_M Minutes, a number from 0 to 59. _s_s Seconds, a number from 0 to 61 (59 plus a maximum of two leap seconds). Everything but the minutes is optional. Time changes for Daylight Saving Time, standard time, leap seconds, and leap years are handled automatically. EENNVVIIRROONNMMEENNTT The following environment variables affect the execution of ddaattee: TZ The timezone to use when displaying dates. The normal format is a pathname relative to _/_u_s_r_/_s_h_a_r_e_/_z_o_n_e_i_n_f_o. For example, the command ``TZ=America/Los_Angeles date'' displays the current time in California. See environ(7) for more information. FFIILLEESS /var/log/messages record of the user setting the time EEXXIITT SSTTAATTUUSS The ddaattee utility exits 0 on success, 1 if unable to set the date, and 2 if able to set the local date, but unable to set it globally. EEXXAAMMPPLLEESS The command: date "+DATE: %Y-%m-%d%nTIME: %H:%M:%S" will display: DATE: 1987-11-21 TIME: 13:36:16 In the Europe/London timezone, the command: date -v1m -v+1y will display: Sun Jan 4 04:15:24 GMT 1998 where it is currently Mon Aug 4 04:15:24 BST 1997. The command: date -v1d -v3m -v0y -v-1d will display the last day of February in the year 2000: Tue Feb 29 03:18:00 GMT 2000 So will do the command: date -v30d -v3m -v0y -v-1m because there is no such date as the 30th of February. The command: date -v1d -v+1m -v-1d -v-fri will display the last Friday of the month: Fri Aug 29 04:31:11 BST 1997 where it is currently Mon Aug 4 04:31:11 BST 1997. The command: date 0613162785 sets the date to ``June 13, 1985, 4:27 PM''. date "+%Y%m%d%H%M.%S" may be used on one machine to print out the date suitable for setting on another. ("+%m%d%H%M%Y.%S" for use on Linux.) The command: date 1432 sets the time to 2:32 PM, without modifying the date. Finally the command: date -j -f "%a %b %d %T %Z %Y" "`date`" "+%s" can be used to parse the output from ddaattee and express it in Epoch time. DDIIAAGGNNOOSSTTIICCSS Occasionally, when timed(8) synchronizes the time on many hosts, the set- ting of a new time value may require more than a few seconds. On these occasions, ddaattee prints: `Network time being set'. The message `Communication error with timed' occurs when the communication between ddaattee and timed(8) fails. LLEEGGAACCYY SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS As above, except for the second line, which is: ddaattee [--jjnnuu] [[[[[_c_c]_y_y]_m_m]_d_d]_H_H]_M_M[_._s_s] LLEEGGAACCYY DDIIAAGGNNOOSSTTIICCSS When invoked in legacy mode, the following exit values are returned: 0 The date was written successfully 1 Unable to set the date 2 Able to set the local date, but unable to set it globally SSEEEE AALLSSOO gettimeofday(2), strftime(3), strptime(3), utmpx(5), timed(8) R. Gusella and S. Zatti, _T_S_P_: _T_h_e _T_i_m_e _S_y_n_c_h_r_o_n_i_z_a_t_i_o_n _P_r_o_t_o_c_o_l _f_o_r _U_N_I_X _4_._3_B_S_D. SSTTAANNDDAARRDDSS The ddaattee utility is expected to be compatible with IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2''). HHIISSTTOORRYY A ddaattee command appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX. BSD August 16, 2007 BSD