[Add to favorites] [Linux] Date command usage (Date Format)

Display time is a commonly used command. It is often used to display date-related file names or times in shell scripts. The date command is used in both Linux and Windows.

Date command usage in Linux

• Date [Option]… [+ Format]
• Date [-u | -- UTC | -- Universal] [mmddhhmm [[CC] YY] [. SS]

 

Date Command Parameters

• -D,-date = string: display the time specified by string
• -F,-file = datefile, similar to the-date parameter, shows the time of each row in the datefile file.
• -Itimespec,-iso-8601 [= timespec] displays date/time in ISO 8601 format. Timespec is one of the following values: "date" (only display date), "hours", "Minutes", and "senconds" (display time precision). The default value is "date ".
• -R,-reference = file: displays the last modification time of the file.
• -R,-the rfc-2822 displays time in RFC-2822 compatible Date Format
• -S,-set = string is set to string
• -U,-UTC,-Universal Display or set to Coordinated Universal Time Format

Date command output display format

• % Characters %
• % A abbreviation of a week (Sun .. SAT)
• % A full name of the Week (Sunday .. Saturday)
• % B (Jan .. dec)
• % B full name of the month (January... December)
• % C date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 est 1989)
• % C Century (excluding the sum after 100) [00-99]
• % D the day of the month (01 .. 31)
• % D Date (mm/DD/yy)
• % E the day of a month (1 .. 31)
• % F date, same as % Y-% m-% d
• % G year (yy)
• % G year (YYYY)
• % H is the same as % B
• % H hour (00 .. 23)
• % I hour (01 .. 12)
• % J the day of the year (001 .. 366)
• % K hour (0 .. 23)
• % L hour (1 .. 12)
• % M month (01 .. 12)
• % M minutes (00 .. 59)
• % N line feed
• % N nanoseconds (000000000 .. 999999999)
• % P am or PM
• % P am or PM
• % R 12-hour time (HH: mm: ss [AP] m)
• % R 24-hour system time (HH: mm)
• % S seconds starting from 00:00:00 UTC
• % S seconds (00 .. 60)
• % T Tab
• % T in 24-hour format (HH: mm: SS)
• % U day of the week (1 .. 7); 1 indicates Monday
• % U the week of the year, and Sunday is the first day of the week (00 .. 53)
• % V the week of the year. Monday is the first day of the week (01 .. 53)
• % W the day of the week (0 .. 6); 0 indicates Sunday
• % W the week of the year, and Monday is the first day of the week (00 .. 53)
• % X date (mm/DD/yy)
• % X time (% H: % m: % s)
• % Y year (00 .. 99)
• % Y year (1970 ...)
• % Z RFC-2822 style numeric format Time Zone (-0500)
• % Z Time Zone (e.g., EDT). If the time zone cannot be determined, it is null.

The following are some experiments for ease of understanding:

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$ date -d "2010-11-15 23:00:01"Mon Nov 15 23:00:01 PST 2010$ date -d "2010/11/15 23:0:2"Mon Nov 15 23:00:02 PST 2010$ date -d "2010/11/15T23:0:2"Mon Nov 15 08:00:02 PST 2010$$ echo "2010-11-15 23:00:01" > date.txt$ echo "2010/11/15 23:00:02" >> date.txt$ cat date.txt2010-11-15 23:00:012010/11/15 23:00:02$ date -f date.txtMon Nov 15 23:00:01 PST 2010Mon Nov 15 23:00:02 PST 2010$$ ls -ltotal 4-rw-r--r-- 1 znan sybase    40 Nov 15 21:14 date.txt$ date -r date.txtMon Nov 15 21:14:36 PST 2010$$ date -I2010-11-15$ date -Ihours2010-11-15T21-0800$ date -Iminutes2010-11-15T21:16-0800$ date -Iseconds2010-11-15T21:16:24-0800$$ date -RMon, 15 Nov 2010 21:47:08 -0800$ date -uTue Nov 16 05:47:13 UTC 2010$$ date +"Today is %A."Today is Monday.$ date +"Date:%b. %e, %G"Date:Nov. 15, 2010$ date +"Date: %b.%e, %G"Date: Nov.15, 2010$ date +"%x %X"11/15/2010 09:50:21 PM$ date +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"2010-11-15 21:51:32$ date +"%Y-%m-%d %I:%M:%S %p"2010-11-15 09:51:55 PM$