File: coreutils.info,  Node: date invocation,  Next: arch invocation,  Up: System context

21.1 ‘date’: Print or set system date and time
==============================================

Synopses:

     date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT]
     date [-u|--utc|--universal] [ MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss] ]

   The ‘date’ command displays the date and time.  With the ‘--set’
(‘-s’) option, or with ‘MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]’, it sets the date and
time.

   Invoking ‘date’ with no FORMAT argument is equivalent to invoking it
with a default format that depends on the ‘LC_TIME’ locale category.  In
the default C locale, this format is ‘'+%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y'’, so
the output looks like ‘Thu Jul  9 17:00:00 EDT 2020’.

   Normally, ‘date’ uses the time zone rules indicated by the ‘TZ’
environment variable, or the system default rules if ‘TZ’ is not set.
*Note Specifying the Time Zone with ‘TZ’: (libc)TZ Variable.

   If given an argument that starts with a ‘+’, ‘date’ prints the
current date and time (or the date and time specified by the ‘--date’
option, see below) in the format defined by that argument, which is
similar to that of the ‘strftime’ function.  Except for conversion
specifiers, which start with ‘%’, characters in the format string are
printed unchanged.  The conversion specifiers are described below.

   An exit status of zero indicates success, and a nonzero value
indicates failure.

* Menu:

* Time conversion specifiers::     %[HIklMNpPrRsSTXzZ]
* Date conversion specifiers::     %[aAbBcCdDeFgGhjmuUVwWxyY]
* Literal conversion specifiers::  %[%nt]
* Padding and other flags::        Pad with zeros, spaces, etc.
* Setting the time::               Changing the system clock.
* Options for date::               Instead of the current time.
* Date input formats::             Specifying date strings.
* Examples of date::               Examples.