4.2BSD/usr/man/man1/date.1

.TH DATE 1 "1 April 1983"
.UC 4
.SH NAME
date \- print and set the date
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B date
.RB "[ -u ] [ yymmddhhmm [ " . "ss ] ]"
.SH DESCRIPTION
If no arguments are given, the current date and time are printed.
If a date is specified, the current date is set.
The
.I -u
flag is used to display the date in GMT (universal) time.
This flag may also be used to set GMT time.
.I yy
is the last two digits of the year;
the first
.I mm
is the month number;
.I dd
is the day number in the month;
.I hh
is the hour number (24 hour system);
the second
.I mm
is the minute number;
.BI . ss
is optional and is the seconds.
For example:
.IP
date 10080045
.PP
sets the date to Oct 8, 12:45 AM.
The year, month and day may be omitted, the current
values being the defaults.
The system operates in GMT.
.I Date
takes care of the conversion to and from
local standard and daylight time.
.SH FILES
/usr/adm/wtmp to record time-setting
.SH SEE ALSO
utmp(5)
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
`Failed to set date: Not owner' if you try to change the date
but are not the super-user.
.SH BUGS
The system attempts to keep the date in a format closely compatible
with VMS.  VMS, however, uses local time (rather than GMT) and does
not understand daylight savings time.  Thus if you use both UNIX
and VMS, VMS will be running on GMT.