DATE(1) General Commands Manual DATE(1)

date - Print or set the system date and time

date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT]...
date [OPTION]... [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]
FORMAT controls the output. Interpreted sequences are:
| Sequence | Description | Example |
| -------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------- |
| %% | a literal % | % |
| %a | locale's abbreviated weekday name | Sun |
| %A | locale's full weekday name | Sunday |
| %b | locale's abbreviated month name | Jan |
| %B | locale's full month name | January |
| %c | locale's date and time | Thu Mar 3 23:05:25 2005|
| %C | century; like %Y, except omit last two digits | 20 |
| %d | day of month | 01 |
| %D | date; same as %m/%d/%y | 12/31/99 |
| %e | day of month, space padded; same as %_d | 3 |
| %F | full date; same as %Y-%m-%d | 2005-03-03 |
| %g | last two digits of year of ISO week number (see %G) | 05 |
| %G | year of ISO week number (see %V); normally useful only with %V | 2005 |
| %h | same as %b | Jan |
| %H | hour (00..23) | 23 |
| %I | hour (01..12) | 11 |
| %j | day of year (001..366) | 062 |
| %k | hour, space padded ( 0..23); same as %_H | 3 |
| %l | hour, space padded ( 1..12); same as %_I | 9 |
| %m | month (01..12) | 03 |
| %M | minute (00..59) | 30 |
| %n | a newline | \n |
| %N | nanoseconds (000000000..999999999) | 123456789 |
| %p | locale's equivalent of either AM or PM; blank if not known | PM |
| %P | like %p, but lower case | pm |
| %q | quarter of year (1..4) | 1 |
| %r | locale's 12-hour clock time | 11:11:04 PM |
| %R | 24-hour hour and minute; same as %H:%M | 23:30 |
| %s | seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1615432800 |
| %S | second (00..60) | 30 |
| %t | a tab | \t |
| %T | time; same as %H:%M:%S | 23:30:30 |
| %u | day of week (1..7); 1 is Monday | 4 |
| %U | week number of year, with Sunday as first day of week (00..53) | 10 |
| %V | ISO week number, with Monday as first day of week (01..53) | 12 |
| %w | day of week (0..6); 0 is Sunday | 4 |
| %W | week number of year, with Monday as first day of week (00..53) | 11 |
| %x | locale's date representation | 03/03/2005 |
| %X | locale's time representation | 23:30:30 |
| %y | last two digits of year (00..99) | 05 |
| %Y | year | 2005 |
| %z | +hhmm numeric time zone | -0400 |
| %:z | +hh:mm numeric time zone | -04:00 |
| %::z | +hh:mm:ss numeric time zone | -04:00:00 |
| %:::z | numeric time zone with : to necessary precision | -04, +05:30 |
| %Z | alphabetic time zone abbreviation | EDT |
By default, date pads numeric fields with zeroes.
The following optional flags may follow '%':
* `-` (hyphen) do not pad the field
* `_` (underscore) pad with spaces
* `0` (zero) pad with zeros
* `^` use upper case if possible
* `#` use opposite case if possible
After any flags comes an optional field width, as a decimal number;
then an optional modifier, which is either
* `E` to use the locale's alternate representations if available, or
* `O` to use the locale's alternate numeric symbols if available.
Examples:
Convert seconds since the epoch (1970-01-01 UTC) to a date
date --date='@2147483647'
Show the time on the west coast of the US (use tzselect(1) to find TZ)
TZ='America/Los_Angeles' date

Print or set the system date and time

display time described by STRING, not 'now'
like --date; once for each line of DATEFILE
output date/time in ISO 8601 format. FMT='date' for date only (the default), 'hours', 'minutes', 'seconds', or 'ns' for date and time to the indicated precision. Example: 2006-08-14T02:34:56-06:00

Possible values:

  • date
  • hours
  • minutes
  • seconds
  • ns
output the available resolution of timestamps Example: 0.000000001
output date and time in RFC 5322 format. Example: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 02:34:56 -0600
output date/time in RFC 3339 format. FMT='date', 'seconds', or 'ns' for date and time to the indicated precision. Example: 2006-08-14 02:34:56-06:00

Possible values:

  • date
  • seconds
  • ns
annotate the parsed date, and warn about questionable usage to stderr
display the last modification time of FILE
set time described by STRING
print or set Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
Print help
Print version
[format]

v(uutils coreutils) 0.11.0

2026-09-01