Linux Pocket Guide, 2nd Edition

Name

date — stdin  stdout  - file  -- opt  --help  --version

Synopsis

date [options] [format]

The date command prints dates and times. The results will depend on your system’s locale settings (for your country and language). In this section we assume an English, US-based locale.

By default, date prints the system date and time in the local timezone:

$ date
Sun Sep 28 21:01:31 EDT 2003

You can format the output differently by supplying a format string beginning with a plus sign:

$ date '+%D'
09/28/03
$ date '+The time is %l:%M %p on a beautiful %A in %B'
The time is  9:01 PM on a beautiful Sunday in September

Here is a sampling of the date command’s many formats:

Format	Meaning	Example (US English)
Whole dates and times:
%c	Full date and time, 12-hour clock	Sun 28 Sep 2003, 09:01:25 PM EDT
%D	Numeric date, 2-digit year	09/28/03
%x	Numeric date, 4-digit year	09/28/2003
%T	Time, 24-hour clock	21:01:25
%X	Time, 12-hour clock	09:01:25 PM
Words:
%a	Day of week (abbreviated)	Sun
%A	Day of week (complete)	Sunday
%b	Month name (abbreviated)	Sep
%B	Month name (complete)	September
%Z	Time zone	EDT
%p	AM or PM	PM
Numbers:
%w	Day of week (0–6, 0=Sunday)	0
%u	Day of week (1–7, 1=Monday)	7
%d	Day of month, leading zero	02
%e	Day of month, leading blank	2
%j	Day of year, leading zeroes	005
%m	Month number, leading zero	09
%y	Year, 2 digits	03
%Y	Year, 4 digits	2003
%M	Minute, leading zero	09