date(1) date(1)
NAME [Toc] [Back]
date - display or set the date and time
SYNOPSIS [Toc] [Back]
date [-u]
date [-u] +format
date [-u] [mmddhhmm[[cc]yy]]
date [-a [-]sss[.fff]]
DESCRIPTION [Toc] [Back]
The date command displays or sets the current HP-UX system clock date
and time. Since the HP-UX system operates in Coordinated Universal
Time (UTC), date automatically converts to and from local standard or
daylight/summer time, based on your TZ environment variable. See
Environment Variables in EXTERNAL INFLUENCES below.
Options [Toc] [Back]
date recognizes the following option:
-u Input and output values in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC),
functionally equivalent to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT),
instead of in local time.
-a [-]sss[.fff]
Slowly adjust the time by sss.fff seconds (fff represents
fractions of a second). This adjustment can be positive or
negative. The system's clock will be sped up or slowed down
until it has drifted by the number of seconds specified.
Formats [Toc] [Back]
The date command has two forms for displaying the date and time and
one form for setting them.
date [-u]
Display the current date and time. The output is the
same as for the %c formatting directive for all languages
except the C default language. See Formatting Directives
and EXAMPLES below.
date [-u] +format
Display the current date and time according to formatting
directives specified in format, which is a string of zero
or more formatting directives and ordinary characters.
If it contains blanks, enclose it in apostrophes or
quotation marks.
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See Formatting Directives below.
All ordinary characters are copied unchanged into the
output string.
The output string is always terminated with a newline
character.
If + is specified and format is omitted, only a newline
is output.
date [-u] [mmddhhmm[[cc]yy]]
Set the HP-UX system clock to the date and time
specified. You require the superuser privilege.
If you include the -u option, the specified date and time
is assumed to be in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
The numeric argument is interpreted left to right in
two-digit pairs as follows:
mm Month number [01-12].
dd Day number in the month [01-31].
hh Hour number (24-hour system) [00-23].
mm Minute number [00-59].
cc Century minus one [19-20].
yy Last two digits of the year number [70-99, 00-
37 (1970-1999, 2000-2037)]. If omitted, the
current year is used.
If you attempt to set the date backwards, date generates
the warning,
do you really want to run time backwards?[yes/no]
Type yes or the equivalent for your locale to set the
clock backwards; anything else to cancel the command.
When date is used to set the date, a pair of date change
records is written to the file /var/adm/wtmps.
(XPG4 only.) No warning is generated if date is set
backwards.
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Formatting Directives [Toc] [Back]
The following formatting directives, shown without the optional field
width and precision specification, are replaced by the indicated
characters. If a directive is not one of the following, the result is
undefined.
The output for digits, characters, and words depends on the
language/locale settings. See Environment Variables in EXTERNAL
INFLUENCES below.
The examples assume that the date command was executed on Wednesday,
January 12, 1994 at 7:45:58 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, using the C
default language.
%a Abbreviated weekday name. For example, Wed.
%A Full weekday name. For example, Wednesday.
%b Abbreviated month name. For example, Jan.
%B Full month name. For example, January.
%c Current date and time representation. For example, Wed Jan
12 19:45:58 1994.
%C Century (the year divided by 100 and truncated to an
integer) as a two-digit decimal number [00-99]. For
example, 19.
%d Day of the month as a two-digit decimal number [01-31]. For
example, 12.
%e Day of the month as a two-character decimal number with
leading space fill [" 1"-"31" ]. For example, 12.
%E Combined Emperor/Era name and year.
%H Hour (24-hour clock) as a two-digit decimal number [00-23].
For example, 19.
%I Hour (12-hour clock) as a two-digit decimal number [01-12].
For example, 07.
%j Day of the year as a three-digit decimal number [001-366].
For example, 012.
%m Month as a decimal two-digit number [01-12]. For example,
01.
%M Minute as a decimal two-digit number [00-59]. For example,
45.
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%n Newline character.
%N Emperor/Era name.
%o Emperor/Era year.
%p Equivalent of either AM or PM. For example, PM.
%R Time as %H:%M
%S Second as a two-digit decimal number (allows for possible
leap seconds) [00-61]. For example, 58.
%t Tab character.
%u Weekday as a one-digit decimal number [1-7 (Monday-Sunday)].
For example, 3.
%U Week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the
week) as a two-digit decimal number [00-53]. All days that
precede the first Sunday in the year are considered to be in
week 00. For example, 02.
%V Week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the
week) as a two-digit decimal number [01-53]. If the week
containing January 1 has four or more days in the new year
(January 1 is Thursday or sooner), it is designated as week
01; otherwise, (January 1 is Friday or later), it is
designated as the last week of the previous year, and the
next week is week 01. For example, 02.
%w Weekday as a one-digit decimal number [0-6 (SundaySaturday)].
For example, 3.
%W Week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the
week) as a two-digit decimal number [00-53]. All days that
precede the first Monday in the year are considered to be in
week 00. For example, 02.
%x Current date representation. For example, 01/12/94.
%X Current time representation. For example, 19:45:58.
%y Year without century as a two-digit decimal number [00-99].
For example, 93.
%Y Year with century as a four-digit decimal number [1970-
2037]. For example, 1994.
%Z Time zone name (or no characters if time zone cannot be
determined). For example, PST.
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%% The % character.
Obsolescent Directives [Toc] [Back]
The following directives are provided for backward compatibility. It
is recommended that the preceding directives be used instead.
%D Date in usual U.S. format. For example, 01/12/94. Use %x
or %m/%d/%y instead.
%F Full month name. For example, January. Use %B instead.
%h Abbreviated month name. For example, Jan. Use %b instead.
%r Time in 12-hour U.S. format. For example, 07:45:58 PM. Use
"%I:%M:%S %p" instead.
%T Time in 24-hour U.S. format. For example, 19:45:58. Use %X
or %H:%M:%S instead.
%z Time zone name (or no characters if time zone cannot be
determined). For example, PST. Use %Z instead.
Modified Formatting Directives [Toc] [Back]
Some Formatting Directives can be modified by the E and O modifier
characters to indicate a different format or specification for the
language specified in the LC_TIME environment variable.
If the corresponding keyword (era, era_year, era_d_fmt, and alt_digit)
is not specified or not supported, the unmodified field descriptor
value is used. The command
LC_ALL=language locale -ck era era_year era_d_fmt alt_digit
displays the keywords and their values in the specified language (see
locale(1)).
%Ec Alternate appropriate date and time representation.
%EC The name of the base year in alternate representation.
%Ex Alternate date representation.
%Ey Offset from %EC (year only) in the alternate
representation.
%EY Full alternate year representation.
%Od Day of month using the alternate numeric symbols.
%Oe Day of month using the alternate numeric symbols with
leading space-character fill if applicable.
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%OH Hour (24-hour clock) using the alternate numeric
symbols.
%OI Hour (12-hour clock) using the alternate numeric
symbols.
%Om Month using the alternate numeric symbols.
%OM Minutes using the alternate numeric symbols.
%OS Seconds using the alternate numeric symbols.
%OU Week number of the year (Sunday is the first day of the
week) using the alternate numeric symbols.
%Ow Weekday as number using the alternate numeric symbols
(Sunday=0).
%OW Weekday number of the year (Monday is the first day of
the week) using the alternate numeric symbols.
%Oy Year (offset from %C) in alternate representation.
Field Width and Precision [Toc] [Back]
An optional field width and precision specification can immediately
follow the initial % of a formatting directive in the following order:
[-|0]width The decimal digit string width specifies a minimum
field width in which the result of the conversion is
right- or left-justified. The default is rightjustified
with space padding on the left. If the
string starts with "-", the result is left-justified
with space padding on the right. If the string
starts with "0", the result is right-justified and
padded with zeros on the left.
.prec The decimal digit string prec specifies the minimum
number of digits to appear for the d, H, I, j, m, M,
o, S, U, w, W, y, and Y numeric directives. If a
directive supplies fewer digits than specified by the
precision, it will be expanded with leading zeros.
prec specifies the maximum number of characters to be
used from the a, A, b, B, c, D, E, F, h, n, N, p, r,
t, T, x, X, z, Z, and % text directives. If a
directive supplies more characters than specified by
the precision, excess characters are truncated on the
right.
If no field width or precision is specified for a d, H, I, m, M, S, U,
W, or y directive, the default is .2; for the j directive, the default
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is .3; for Y, the default is .4; for w, the default is .1.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES [Toc] [Back]
Environment Variables
LC_CTYPE determines the interpretation of the bytes within the format
string as single- and/or multi-byte characters.
LC_NUMERIC determines the characters used to form numbers for those
directives that produce numbers in the output. The characters used
are those defined by alt_digit (see locale(1) and ALT_DIGIT in
langinfo(5)).
LC_TIME determines the content (for example, the weekday names
produced by the %a directive) and format (for example, the current
time representation produced by the %X directive) of date and time
strings output by the date command.
LC_MESSAGES determines the language in which messages (other than the
date and time strings) are displayed.
If LC_CTYPE, LC_NUMERIC, LC_TIME, or LC_MESSAGES is not specified or
is null, it defaults to the value of LANG.
If LANG is not specified or is null, it defaults to C (see lang(5)).
If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, all
internationalization variables default to C (see environ(5)).
TZ determines the conversion between the system time in UTC and the
time in the user's local time zone. See environ(5) and tztab(4). TZ
also determines the content (that is, the time-zone name produced by
the %z and %Z directives) of date and time strings output by the date
command.
If TZ is not set or is set to the empty string, its default value is
EST5EDT.
International Code Set Support [Toc] [Back]
Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.
DIAGNOSTICS [Toc] [Back]
The following messages may be displayed.
bad conversion
The date/time specification is syntactically incorrect. Check
it against the usage and for the correct range of each of the
digit-pairs.
bad format character - c
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The character c is not a valid format directive, field width
specifier, or precision specifier.
do you really want to run time backwards?[yes/no]
The date/time you specified is earlier than the current clock
value. Type yes (or the equivalent for your locale) to set
the clock backwards; anything else to cancel the command.
no permission
You need the superuser privilege to change the date.
EXAMPLES [Toc] [Back]
Date in Different Languages
Display the date. In this example, the TZ environment variable
contains PST8PDT, and the language environment variables are set as
noted.
date -> Fri Aug 20 15:03:37 PDT 1993 <- C (default)
date -u -> Fri Aug 20 22:03:37 UTC 1993 <- C (default)
date -> Fri, Aug 20, 1993 03:03:37 PM <- en_US.roman8 (U.S. English)
date -> Fri. 20 Aug, 1993 03:03:37 PM <- en_GB.roman8 (U.K. English)
date -> 20/08/1993 15.47.47 <- pt_PT.roman8 (Portuguese)
Set Date [Toc] [Back]
Set the date to Oct 8, 12:45 a.m.
date 10080045
Display Formatted Date [Toc] [Back]
Display the current date and time using a format. Note the use of
quotation marks due to the blanks in the format.
date "+DATE: %m/%d/%y%nTIME: %H:%M:%S"
The output resembles the following:
DATE: 10/08/87
TIME: 12:45:05
Display Formatted Date Using Local Language Conversion [Toc] [Back]
With the date as set in the "Set Date" example above and LC_TIME set
to de_De.roman8 (German):
date +'%-4.4h %2.1d %H:%M'
generates output similar to:
Okt 8 12:45
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where the month field is four characters long, flush-left, and spacepadded
on the right if the month name is shorter than four characters.
The day field is two characters long, with leading zeros suppressed.
WARNINGS [Toc] [Back]
The former HP-UX format directive A has been changed to W for ANSI
compatibility.
Changing the date while the system is running in multiuser mode should
be avoided to prevent disrupting user-scheduled and time sensitive
programs and processes. Also, changing the date can cause make(1) and
the SCCS and cron(1M) subsystems to behave in an unexpected manner.
The cron daemon should be killed prior to setting the date backwards,
then restarted. SCCS files should be checked with the val command
(see val(1)) if deltas have been made while the clock was wrongly set.
The following formatting directives may be deleted from future
releases: %E, %F, %o, %z.
Currently, the maximum date supported is December 31, 2037 23:59:00
UTC.
AUTHOR [Toc] [Back]
date was developed by AT&T and HP.
FILES [Toc] [Back]
/var/adm/wtmps
SEE ALSO [Toc] [Back]
locale(1), stime(2), ctime(3C), strftime(3C), tztab(4), environ(5),
lang(5), langinfo(5).
STANDARDS CONFORMANCE [Toc] [Back]
date: SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3, XPG4, POSIX.2
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