DATE(1)

NAME
date - write the date and time

SYNOPSIS
date [ -u ] [ +format ]

DESCRIPTION
Date writes the current date and time to the standard output. It is intended to be compliant with draft 11 of the Posix 1003.2 Command Language and Utilities standard. Therefore, it is purposely not usable by the super-user for setting the system time.

Date accepts one option:

-u  Perform operations as if the TZ environment variable was set to GMT0.

If an argument to date is given that begins with a ``+'', then the output is controlled by the contents of the rest of the string. Normal text is output unmodified, while field descriptors in the format string are substituted for.

The date program is essentially a wrapper around strftime(3); see there for a description of the available formatting options.

If no format string is given, or if it does not begin with a ``+'', then the default format of "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y" will be used. This produces the traditional style of output, such as ``Sun Mar 17 10:32:47 EST 1991''.

SEE ALSO
time(2), strftime(3), localtime(3)

BUGS
This version only works for the POSIX locale.

AUTHOR
Arnold Robbins

INTERNET: arnold@skeeve.atl.ga.us
UUCP:     emory!skeeve!arnold
Phone:    +1 404 248 9324