date (Unix)

Formatting

To format a date, a parameter string beginning with a plus sign (+) is given. The formatting specifiers below are supported by most implementations.

Format specifiers (format string starts with +)

Specifier	Description	Values or example
Day
%a	weekday, abbreviated	Wed
%A	weekday, full	Wednesday
%d	day of the month, two digits, zero filled	08
%e	day of the month	8
%j	day of year, zero filled	001–366
%u	day of week from Monday to Sunday	1–7
%w	day of week from Sunday to Saturday	0–6
Week
%U	week number, Sunday as first day of week	00–53
%W	week number, Monday as first day of week	00–53
%V	ISO standard week of the year	01–53
Month
%m	two-digit month number	01–12
%h	month name, abbreviated	Mar
%b	month name, localised abbreviation	Mar
%B	locale's full month, variable length	March
Year
%y	two-digit year	00–99
%Y	four-digit year	2014
%g	two-digit year corresponding to the %V week number
%G	four-digit year corresponding to the %V week number
Century
%C	two century digits from year	00–99
Date
%D	mm/dd/yy	03/19/14
%x	locale's date representation	03/19/2014
%F	%Y-%m-%d	2014-03-19
Hours
%l	hour (12 hour)	10
%I	hour (12 hour), zero-filled	10
%k	hour (24 hour)	10
%H	hour (24 hour), zero-padded	10
%p	locale's upper case AM or PM (blank in many locales)	AM
%P	locale's lower case am or pm	am
Minutes
%M	two-digit minute number	52
Seconds
%s	seconds since 00:00:00 1970-01-01 UTC (Unix epoch)	1395226379
%S	two-digit second number	00–60 (Includes 60 to accommodate a leap second)
%N	nanoseconds	000000000–999999999
Time
%r	hours, minutes, seconds (12-hour clock)	10:52:59 AM
%R	hours, minutes (24 hour clock)	10:52
%T	hours, minutes, seconds (24-hour clock)	10:52:59
%X	locale's time representation	11:07:26 AM
Date and time
%c	locale's date and time	Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 EST 1989
Time zone
%z	RFC-822 style numeric time zone	-0500
%Z	time zone name; nothing if no time zone is determinable	EST, EDT

literals: %n newline      %% percent      %t horizontal tab

By default, date normally fills numeric fields with zeroes. GNU date, but not BSD date, recognizes a modifier between the per cent sign (%) and the format specifier:

• hyphen (-): do not fill the field
• underscore (_): pad the field with spaces

TZ Specifies the time zone, unless overridden by command line parameters. If neither is specified, the setting from /etc/localtime is used.

example

$ date "+%m/%d/%y" 
7/4/06

$ date "+%Y%m%d"
20060704

To assign the time to a variable

 $ START=`date '+%r'`
 $ echo $START
 03:06:02 PM
 $ sleep 5
 $ echo $START
 03:06:02 PM

N.B. the variable has the time when it was assigned.

Yesterday assigned to variable

 $ DATE=$(date -d yesterday +"%Y%m%d")
 $ echo $DATE
 20060704

The TZ environment variable specifies the time zone. Valid values are in /usr/share/zoneinfo

 $ TZ=GMT; echo "GMT: `date +\"%R (%Z)\"`"
 GMT: 12:30 (GMT)
 $ TZ=Europe/Stockholm; echo "Stockholm: `date +\"%R (%Z)\"`"
 Stockholm: 13:30 (CET)
 $ TZ=Asia/Kuala_Lumpur; echo "Kuala Lumpur: `date +\"%R (%Z)\"`"
 Kuala Lumpur: 20:30 (MYT)
 $ TZ=US/Central; echo "Dallas: `date +\"%R (%Z)\"`"
 Dallas: 07:30 (CDT)

Converting between time zones Example: What time is it in Moscow when it will be 17:35 in Los Angeles

 $ TZ=Europe/Moscow date "+%F %R (%Z%z)" -d 'TZ="America/Los_Angeles" 17:35'
 2013-03-22 04:35 (MSK+0400)

Other valid time strings

GNU date	BSD date	output
$ date +"%Y%m%d" -d sunday	$ date -v +sun +"%Y%m%d"	20060709
$ date +"%Y%m%d" -d last-sunday	$ date -v -sun +"%Y%m%d"	20060702
$ date +"%Y%m%d" -d last-week	$ date -v -1w +"%Y%m%d"	20060627
$ date +"%Y%m%d" -d last-month	$ date -v -1m +"%Y%m%d"	20060604
$ date +"%Y%m%d" -d last-year	$ date -v -1y +"%Y%m%d"	20050704
$ date +"%Y%m%d" -d next-week	$ date -v 1w +"%Y%m%d"	20060711
$ date +"%Y%m%d" -d next-month	$ date -v 1m +"%Y%m%d"	20060804
$ date +"%Y%m%d" -d next-year	$ date -v 1y +"%Y%m%d"	20070704
$ date +"%Y%m%d" -d "2 days ago"	$ date -v -2d +"%Y%m%d"	20060702
$ date +"%Y%m%d" -d "2 months ago"	$ date -v -2m +"%Y%m%d"	20060504
$ date +"%Y%m%d" -d "2 years ago"	$ date -v -2y +"%Y%m%d"	20040704

To show the time in seconds since 1970-01-01 (Unix epoch):

$ date +"%s" -d "Fri Apr 24 13:14:39 CDT 2009"
1240596879

To convert Unix epoch time (seconds since 1970-01-01) to a human readable format:

$ date -d "UTC 1970-01-01 1240596879 secs"
Fri Apr 24 13:14:39 CDT 2009

Or:

$ date -ud @1000000000
Sun Sep  9 01:46:40 UTC 2001