DATE(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual DATE(1) NAME date - print and set the date SYNOPSIS date [ -n ] [ -u ] [ yymmddhhmm [ .ss ] [ +format ] ] DESCRIPTION If no arguments are given, the current date and time are printed. Providing an argument will set the desired date. Only the superuser can set the date. The -_u flag is used to display or set the date in GMT (universal) time. _y_y represents the last two digits of the year; the first _m_m is the month number; _d_d is the day number; _h_h is the hour number (24 hour system); the second _m_m is the minute number; ._s_s is optional and represents the seconds. For example: date 8506131627 sets the date to June 13 1985, 4:27 PM. The year, month and day may be omitted; the default values will be the current ones. The system operates in GMT. _D_a_t_e takes care of the conversion to and from local standard and daylight-saving time. If _t_i_m_e_d(_8) is running to synchronize the clocks of machines in a local area network, _d_a_t_e sets the time globally on all those machines unless the -n option is given. If the argument begins with +, the output of _d_a_t_e is under the control of the user. The format for the output is simi- lar to that of the first argument to _p_r_i_n_t_f(3S). All output fields are of fixed size (zero padded if necessary). Each field descriptor is preceded by % and will be replaced in the output by its corresponding value. A single % is encoded by %%. All other characters are copied to the out- put without change. The string is always terminated with a new-line character. Field Descriptors: n insert a new-line character t insert a tab character m month of year - 01 to 12 d day of month - 01 to 31 y last 2 digits of year - 00 to 99 D date as mm/dd/yy H hour - 00 to 23 M minute - 00 to 59 S second - 00 to 59 T time as HH:MM:SS j day of year - 001 to 366 w day of week - Sunday = 0 a abbreviated weekday - Sun to Sat Printed 12/27/86 May 18, 1986 1 DATE(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual DATE(1) h abbreviated month - Jan to Dec r time in AM/PM notation R month of year in Roman EXAMPLE date '+DATE: %m/%d/%y%nTIME: %H:%M:%S' would have generated as output: DATE: 08/01/76 TIME: 14:45:05 FILES /usr/adm/wtmp to record time-setting. In /usr/adm/messages, _d_a_t_e records the name of the user setting the time. SEE ALSO gettimeofday(2), utmp(5), timed(8), _T_S_P: _T_h_e _T_i_m_e _S_y_n_c_h_r_o_n_i_z_a_t_i_o_n _P_r_o_t_o_c_o_l _f_o_r _U_N_I_X _4._3_B_S_D, R. Gusella and S. Zatti DIAGNOSTICS Exit status is 0 on success, 1 on complete failure to set the date, and 2 on successfully setting the local date but failing globally. `You are not superuser: date not set' if you try to change the date but are not the super-user. Occasionally, when _t_i_m_e_d synchronizes the time on many hosts, the setting of a new time value may require more than a few seconds. On these occasions, _d_a_t_e prints: `Network time being set'. The message `Communication error with timed' occurs when the communication between _d_a_t_e and _t_i_m_e_d fails. LOCAL MODS Added the "+format" option. 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-saving time. Thus, if you use both UNIX and VMS, VMS will be running on GMT. Printed 12/27/86 May 18, 1986 2