NAME

date − print or set the date and time

SYNOPSIS

date [-u]
date [-u] +format
date [-u] mmddhhmm[yy]

DESCRIPTION

date displays or sets the current HP-UX system clock date and time.  The command has three forms:

date [-u] Display the current date and time. 

date [-u] +format Display current date and time according to formatting directives specified in format (see Formatting Directives below). 

The format string consists of zero or more directives and ordinary characters.  A directive consists of a % character, an optional field width and precision specification, and a terminating character that determines the directive’s behavior.  All ordinary characters are copied unchanged into the output string, and the output string is always terminated with a new-line character. 

The default format string is %c when format is not specified or the date [-u] command form is used. 

date [-u] mmddhhmm[yy]
Set HP-UX system clock to the date and time specified.  Requires super-user privilege.  If -u option is given, the specified date and time is assumed to be Universal Coordinated Time.  The numeric argument is interpreted left-to-right as follows:

mm Month number. 

dd Day number in the month. 

hh Hour number (24 hour system). 

mm Minute number. 

yy (optional) Last 2 digits of the year number.  If not specified, current year is used. 

Options

-u If this option is given, all operations occur as if the TZ environment variable were set to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). 

The HP-UX system operates in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).  date automatically converts to and from local standard and daylight time unless the -u option is given (see Environment Variables below). 

If the super-user attempts to set the date backwards, date generates a warning, and requires an extra confirmation before proceeding. 

When date is used to set the date, a pair of date change records is written to the file /etc/wtmp. 

In an HP Clustered Environment, the date and time are automatically set when the system comes up as a cluster node.  Setting the date and time from any node in a cluster sets the date and time on all nodes in the cluster. 

Formatting Directives

The following directives, shown without the optional field width and precision specification, are replaced by the indicated characters:

%a Abbreviated weekday name. 

%A Full weekday name. 

%b Abbreviated month name. 

%B Full month name. 

%c Current date and time representation. 

%C Century (a year divided by 100 and truncated to an integer) as a decimal number (00-99). 

%d Day of the month as a decimal number [01,31]. 

%D Date in the format mm/dd/yy. 

%e Day of the month as a decimal number (1-31 in a two digit field with leading space-character fill). 

%E Combined Emperor/Era name and year. 

%h Same as %b. 

%H Hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number [00,23]. 

%I Hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number [01,12]. 

%j Day of the year as a decimal number [001,366]. 

%m Month as a decimal number [01,12]. 

%M Minute as a decimal number [00,59]. 

%n New-line character. 

%N Emperor/Era name. 

%o Emperor/Era year. 

%p Equivalent of either AM or PM. 

%r 12-hour clock time (01-12) using AM/PM notation. 

%S Second as a decimal number [00,59]. 

%t Tab character. 

%u Weekday as a decimal number [1(Monday),7]. 

%U Week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53].  All days in a new year preceding the first Sunday are considered to be in week 0. 

%V Week of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [01,53].  If the week containing 1 January has four or more days in the new year, it is considered week 1; otherwise, it is week 53 of the previous year, and the next week is week 1. 

%w Weekday as a decimal number [0(Sunday),6]. 

%W Week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53].  All days in a new year preceding the first Sunday are considered to be in week 0. 

%x Current date representation. 

%X Current time representation. 

%y Year without century as a decimal number [00,99]. 

%Y Year with century as a decimal number. 

%Z Time zone name (or no characters if time zone cannot be determined). 

%% %

The following directives are provided for backward compatibility.  It is recommended that the preceding directives be used in preference to those which follow. 

%D Date in usual U.S.  Format (%m/%d/%y) (use %x instead). 

%F Full month name (use %B instead). 

%h Abbreviated month name (use %b instead). 

%r Time in 12-hour US format (%I:%M:%S [AM|PM]) (use %X instead). 

%T Time in 24-hour US format (%H:%M:%S) (use %X instead). 

%z Time zone name (or no characters if time zone cannot be determined) (use %Z instead). 

If a directive is not one of the above, the behavior is undefined. 

Modified Formatting Directives

Some Formatting Directives can be modified by the E and O modifier characters to indicate a different format or specification as specified in the LC_TIME environment variable.  If the corresponding keyword (see era, era_year, era_d_fmt, and alt_digits) is not specified or not supported, the unmodified field descriptor value is used. 

%EC The name of the base year in alternate representation. 

%Ex Alternate date representation. 

%Ey Offset from %EC (year only) in the alternate representation. 

%Od Day of month using the alternate numeric symbols. 

%Oe Day of month using the alternate numeric symobols with leading space-character fill if applicable. 

%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 as the first day of the week) using the alternate numeric symbols. 

%Ow Weekday as number using the alternate representation (Sunday = 0). 

%OW Weekday number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) using the alternate numeric symbols. 

%Oy Year (offset from %C) in alternate representation. 

Field Width and Precision

An optional field width and precision specification can immediately follow the initial % of a directive in the following order:

[-|0]w the decimal digit string w specifies a minimum field width in which the result of the conversion is right- or left-justified.  Default is right-justified (with space padding).  If the optional - option is specified, the result is left-justified with space padding on the right.  If the optional 0 option is specified, the result is right-justified and padded with zeros on the left. 

.p the decimal digit string p specifies the minimum number of digits to appear for the d, H, I, j, m, M, o, S, U, w, W, y, and Y directives, and 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 % directives.  In the first case, if a directive supplies fewer digits than specified by the precision, it is expanded with leading zeros.  In the second case, 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, y, or j directive, a default of .2 is used for all except j for which .3 is used. 

EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

Environment Variables

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 in the environment or is set to the empty string, a default of EST5EDT is used. 

LC_TIME determines the content (for example, weekday names produced by the %a directive) and format (for example, current time representation produced by the %X directive) of date and time strings output by the date command. 

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_DIGITS (see langinfo(5)).

LANG determines the language in which messages (other than the date and time strings) are displayed. 

If LC_TIME or LC_CTYPE is not specified in the environment or is set to the empty string, the value of LANG is used as a default for each unspecified or empty variable.  If LANG is not specified or is set to the empty string, a default of "C" (see lang(5)) is used instead of LANG.  If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, date behaves as if all internationalization variables are set to "C".  See environ(5).

International Code Set Support

Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported. 

DIAGNOSTICS

no permission Super-user privileges are required to change the date. 

bad conversion Date specification is syntactically incorrect. 

bad format character Field directive is not recognizable. 

EXAMPLES

Set Date

Set date to Oct 8, 12:45 AM:

date 10080045

Display Formatted Date

Display current date and time using a specified format:

date ´+DATE: %m/%d/%y%nTIME: %H:%M:%S´

Output resembles the following:

DATE: 10/08/87
TIME: 12:45:05

Display Formatted Date Using Local Language Conversion

Using the date as set in the first example above and LC_TIME set to german:

date ´%-4.4h %2.1d %H:%M´

generates output similar to:

Okt   8 12:45

where the month field is four bytes long, flush-left, and space-padded on the right if the month name is shorter than four bytes.  The day field is two bytes long, with leading zeros suppressed. 

WARNINGS

Changing the date while the system is running in multi-user mode should be avoided to prevent disrupting user-scheduled and time-sensitive programs and processes.  Also, changing the date can cause make and the SCCS and cron subsystems to behave in an unexpected manner.  The cron daemon should be killed prior to setting the date backwards, then restarted (see cron(1M)). SCCS files should be checked with val if deltas have been made while the clock was set wrong (see val(1)).

Former HP-UX format option A has been changed to W for ANSI compatability. 

AUTHOR

date was developed by AT&T and HP. 

FILES

/etc/wtmp

SEE ALSO

stime(2), ctime(3C), getdate(3C), strftime(3C), tztab(4), environ(5), lang(5), langinfo(5). 

STANDARDS CONFORMANCE

date: SVID2, XPG2, XPG3, POSIX.2

Hewlett-Packard Company  —  HP-UX Release 9.0: August 1992