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The date command

The date command is used to print the system current date and time.

date command is also used to set the date and time of the system, but you need to be the super-user (root) to do it.

Examples:

  1. To show the current date and time:
date
  1. You can use -u option to show the date and time in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) time zone
date -u
  1. To display any given date string in formatted date:
date --date="2/02/2010"
date --date="2 years ago"

Syntax:

date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT]
date [-u|--utc|--universal] [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]

Additional Flags and their Functionalities:

Short Flag Long Flag Description
-d --date=STRING convert the provided string into formatted date
-f --file=DATEFILE like --date but for files
-I[FMT] --iso-8601[=FMT] Display date and time in ISO 8601 format
-r --reference=FILE Display the last modification time of FILE
-s --set=STRING sets the time to the one described by STRING
-u --universal show the date and time in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) time zone
-R --rfc-email Display date and time in ISO 8601 format Example: (Fri, 22 Oct 2021 05:18:42 +0200)
- rfc-3339=FMT Display date and time in RFC 3339 format
- --debug Usually used with --date to annotate the parsed date and warn about questionable usage to stderr

Control The output:

You can use Format specifiers to control the output date and time.

Examples:

Command Output
$ date "+%D" 10/22/21
$ date "+%D %T" 10/22/21 05:33:51
$ date "+%A %B %d %T %y" Friday October 22 05:34:47 21

Syntax:

date "+%[format-options ...]"

List of Format specifiers to control the output:

Specifiers Description
%a abbreviated weekday name (e.g., Sun)
%A full weekday name (e.g., Sunday)
%b abbreviated month name (e.g., Jan)
%B full month name (e.g., January)
%c date and time (e.g., Thu Mar 3 23:05:25 2005)
%C century; like %Y, except omit last two digits (e.g., 20)
%d day of month (e.g., 01)
%D date; same as %m/%d/%y
%e day of month, space padded; same as %_d
%F full date; same as %Y-%m-%d
%g last two digits of year of ISO week number (see %G)
%G year of ISO week number (see %V); normally useful only with %V
%h same as %b
%H hour (00..23)
%I hour (01..12)
%j day of year (001..366)
%k hour, space padded ( 0..23); same as %_H
%l hour, space padded ( 1..12); same as %_I
%m month (01..12)
%M minute (00..59)
%n a newline
%N nanoseconds (000000000..999999999)
%p locale's equivalent of either AM or PM; blank if not known
%P like %p, but lower case
%q quarter of year (1..4)
%r locale's 12-hour clock time (e.g., 11:11:04 PM)
%R 24-hour hour and minute; same as %H:%M
%s seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
%S second (00..60)
%t a tab
%T time; same as %H:%M:%S
%u day of week (1..7); 1 is Monday
%U week number of year, with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)
%V ISO week number, with Monday as first day of week (01..53)
%w day of week (0..6); 0 is Sunday
%W week number of year, with Monday as first day of week (00..53)
%x locale's date representation (e.g., 12/31/99)
%X locale's time representation (e.g., 23:13:48)
%y last two digits of year (00..99)
%Y year
%z +hhmm numeric time zone (e.g., -0400)
%:z +hh:mm numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00)
%::z +hh:mm:ss numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00:00)
%:::z numeric time zone with : to necessary precision (e.g., -04, +05:30)
%Z alphabetic time zone abbreviation (e.g., EDT)