1date(1) User Commands date(1)
2
6 date - write the date and time
7
9 /usr/bin/date [-u] [+format]
10 /usr/bin/date [-a [-]sss.fff]
13 /usr/bin/date [-u] [ [mmdd] HHMM | mmddHHMM [cc] yy] [.SS]
16 /usr/xpg4/bin/date [-u] [+format]
19 /usr/xpg4/bin/date [-a [-]sss.fff]
22 /usr/xpg4/bin/date [-u]
25 [ [mmdd] HHMM | mmddHHMM [cc] yy] [.SS]
26
29 The date utility writes the date and time to standard output or
30 attempts to set the system date and time. By default, the current date
31 and time is written.
32 Specifications of native language translations of month and weekday
35 names are supported. The month and weekday names used for a language
36 are based on the locale specified by the environment variable LC_TIME.
37 See environ(5).
38 The following is the default form for the "C" locale:
41 %a %b %e %T %Z %Y
43 For example,
47 Fri Dec 23 10:10:42 EST 1988
49
53 The following options are supported:
54 -a [-]sss.fff Slowly adjust the time by sss.fff seconds (fff
56 represents fractions of a second). This adjust‐
57 ment can be positive or negative. The system's
58 clock is sped up or slowed down until it has
59 drifted by the number of seconds specified.
60 Only the super-user may adjust the time.
61 -u Display (or set) the date in Greenwich Mean
64 Time (GMT—universal time), bypassing the normal
65 conversion to (or from) local time.
66
69 The following operands are supported:
70 +format If the argument begins with +, the output of date is the
72 result of passing format and the current time to strf‐
73 time(). date uses the conversion specifications listed on
74 the strftime(3C) manual page, with the conversion specifi‐
75 cation for %C determined by whether /usr/bin/date or
76 /usr/xpg4/bin/date is used:
77 /usr/bin/date Locale's date and time representa‐
79 tion. This is the default output for
80 date.
81 /usr/xpg4/bin/date Century (a year divided by 100 and
84 truncated to an integer) as a deci‐
85 mal number [00-99].
86 The string is always terminated with a NEWLINE. An argument
88 containing blanks must be quoted; see the EXAMPLES section.
89 mm Month number
92 dd Day number in the month
95 HH Hour number (24 hour system)
98 MM Minute number
101 SS Second number
104 cc Century (a year divided by 100 and truncated to an integer)
107 as a decimal number [00-99]. For example, cc is 19 for the
108 year 1988 and 20 for the year 2007.
109 yy Last two digits of the year number. If century (cc) is not
112 specified, then values in the range 69-99 shall refer to
113 years 1969 to 1999 inclusive, and values in the range 00-68
114 shall refer to years 2000 to 2068, inclusive.
115 The month, day, year number, and century may be omitted; the current
119 values are applied as defaults. For example, the following entry:
120 example% date 10080045
122 sets the date to Oct 8, 12:45 a.m. The current year is the default
127 because no year is supplied. The system operates in GMT. date takes
128 care of the conversion to and from local standard and daylight time.
129 Only the super-user may change the date. After successfully setting the
130 date and time, date displays the new date according to the default for‐
131 mat. The date command uses TZ to determine the correct time zone infor‐
132 mation; see environ(5).
133
135 Example 1 Generating Output
136 The following command:
139 example% date '+DATE: %m/%d/%y%nTIME:%H:%M:%S'
142 generates as output
147 DATE: 08/01/76
150 TIME: 14:45:05
152 Example 2 Setting the Current Time
156 The following command sets the current time to 12:34:56:
159 example# date 1234.56
162 Example 3 Setting Another Time and Date in Greenwich Mean Time
166 The following command sets the date to January 1st, 12:30 am, 2000:
169 example# date -u 010100302000
172 This is displayed as:
177 Thu Jan 01 00:30:00 GMT 2000
180
184 See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
185 that affect the execution of date: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_TIME,
186 LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.
187 TZ Determine the timezone in which the time and date are written,
189 unless the -u option is specified. If the TZ variable is not set
190 and the -u is not specified, the system default timezone is
191 used.
192
195 The following exit values are returned:
196 0 Successful completion.
198 >0 An error occurred.
201
204 See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
205 /usr/bin/date
207 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
208 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
209 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
210 │Availability │SUNWcsu │
211 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
212 │CSI │enabled │
213 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
214 /usr/xpg4/bin/date
216 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
217 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
218 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
219 │Availability │SUNWxcu4 │
220 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
221 │CSI │enabled │
222 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
223 │Interface Stability │Standard │
224 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
225
227 strftime(3C), attributes(5), environ(5), standards(5)
228
230 no permission You are not the super-user and you tried to change
231 the date.
232 bad conversion The date set is syntactically incorrect.
235
238 If you attempt to set the current date to one of the dates that the
239 standard and alternate time zones change (for example, the date that
240 daylight time is starting or ending), and you attempt to set the time
241 to a time in the interval between the end of standard time and the
242 beginning of the alternate time (or the end of the alternate time and
243 the beginning of standard time), the results are unpredictable.
244 Using the date command from within windowing environments to change the
247 date can lead to unpredictable results and is unsafe. It can also be
248 unsafe in the multi-user mode, that is, outside of a windowing system,
249 if the date is changed rapidly back and forth. The recommended method
250 of changing the date is 'date -a'.
251 Setting the system time or allowing the system time to progress beyond
254 03:14:07 UTC Jan 19, 2038 is not supported on Solaris.
255SunOS 5.11 11 May 2004 date(1)