NAME
    date - print or set the system date and time

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

DESCRIPTION
    Display the current time in the given FORMAT, or set the system date.

    -d, --date=STRING
    display time described by STRING, not `now'

    -f, --file=DATEFILE
    like --date once for each line of DATEFILE

    -ITIMESPEC, --iso-8601[=TIMESPEC]
    output date/time  in ISO 8601 format. TIMESPEC=`date' for date
    only, `hours', `minutes', or `seconds' for date and time to the
    indicated  precision.  --iso-8601 without TIMESPEC defaults to
    `date'.

    -r, --reference=FILE
    display the last modification time of FILE

    -R, --rfc-822
    output RFC-822 compliant date string

    -s, --set=STRING
    set time described by STRING

    -u, --utc, --universal
    print or set Coordinated Universal Time

    --help display this help and exit

    --version
    output version information and exit

    FORMAT controls the output. The only valid option for the second form
    specifies Coordinated Universal Time. Interpreted sequences are:

    %%   a literal %

    %a   locale's abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)

    %A   locale's full weekday name, variable length (Sunday..Saturday)

    %b   locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)

    %B   locale's full month name, variable length (January..December)

    %c   locale's date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 EST 1989)

    %C   century (year divided by 100 and truncated to an integer)
    [00-99]

    %d   day of month (01..31)

    %D   date (mm/dd/yy)

    %e   day of month, blank padded ( 1..31)

    %F   same as %Y-%m-%d

    %g   the 2-digit year corresponding to the %V week number

    %G   the 4-digit year corresponding to the %V week number

    %h   same as %b

    %H   hour (00..23)

    %I   hour (01..12)

    %j   day of year (001..366)

    %k   hour ( 0..23)

    %l   hour ( 1..12)

    %m   month (01..12)

    %M   minute (00..59)

    %n   a newline

    %N   nanoseconds (000000000..999999999)

    %p   locale's upper case AM or PM indicator (blank in many locales)

    %P   locale's lower case am or pm indicator (blank in many locales)

    %r   time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)

    %R   time, 24-hour (hh:mm)

    %s   seconds since `00:00:00 1970-01-01 UTC' (a GNU extension)

    %S   second (00..60); the 60 is necessary to accommodate a leap sec-
    ond

    %t   a horizontal tab

    %T   time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)

    %u   day of week (1..7); 1 represents Monday

    %U   week number of year with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)

    %V   week number of year with Monday as first day of week (01..53)

    %w   day of week (0..6); 0 represents Sunday

    %W   week number of year with Monday as first day of week (00..53)

    %x   locale's date representation (mm/dd/yy)

    %X   locale's time representation (%H:%M:%S)

    %y   last two digits of year (00..99)

    %Y   year (1970...)

    %z   RFC-822 style numeric timezone (-0500) (a nonstandard extension)

    %Z   time zone (e.g., EDT), or nothing if no time zone is deter-
    minable

    By default, date pads numeric fields with zeroes. GNU date recognizes
    the following modifiers between `%' and a numeric directive.

    `-' (hyphen) do not pad the field `_' (underscore) pad the field
    with spaces

ENVIRONMENT
    TZ   Specifies the timezone, unless overridden by command line param-
    eters. If neither is specified, the setting from /etc/localtime
    is used.

AUTHOR
    Written by David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS
    Report bugs to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.

COPYRIGHT
    Copyright (C) 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
    This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is
    NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR  A PARTICULAR
    PURPOSE.

SEE ALSO
    The full documentation for date is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If
    the info and date programs are properly installed at your site, the
    command

    info date

    should give you access to the complete manual.

RFC