UNIX Date Command Examples

by Vivek Gite on January 27, 2009 · 9 comments

How do I view and set date under UNIX operating systems?

The date command under UNIX display date. It is also used to set date and time. You must be the super-user (root) to change the date and time.

UNIX Date Command Syntax

date
date "+format"

Task: Display Current Date and Time

Type the following command:

date

Sample outputs:

Tue Oct 27 15:35:08 CDT 2009

Task: Set The Current Time

To set the current time to 05:30:30, enter:

date 0530.30

Task: Set Date

Set the date to Oct 25, 12:45 a.m., enter:

date 10250045

Another example - set the current date and time to Oct 15, 2009 04:30 you type:

date --set="20091015 04:30"

Task: Generating Output

Warning examples only works on UNIX computer

WARNING! These examples may not work on Linux computer i.e. GNU coreutiles date command. All examples are tested on HP-UX, AIX, Sun Solaris and other propitiatory UNIX operating systems only.

Type the following command:

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

Sample outputs:

DATE: 10/27/09
TIME:15:50:44

Try the following examples:

date "+%m/%d/%y"
date "+%Y%m%d"
date +'%-4.4h %2.1d %H:%M'

Unix Command Help

Type the following command to read the date command man page:

man date

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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Philippe Petrinko March 15, 2010

@Vivek – Do you confirm this one ? My date ((GNU coreutils) 6.10) does not like it much.
date +'%-4.4h %2.1d %H:%M'
What does it do on your system?

2 Vivek Gite March 15, 2010

@Philippe,

I think I used that one on proprietary AIX or may be on HP-UX UNIX box. The month field is four characters long, left side. Same goes for the day (2 chars long). It will not work on *GNU coreutils*. You can try them on HP-UX or AIX and should provide output as follows:

mmmm    dd HH:MM

3 Philippe Petrinko March 15, 2010

@Vivek: Then, would you consider adding some warning/advice/comment to prevent your readers loosing time (and hairs ;-) ).

4 Vivek Gite March 15, 2010

Title does says “UNIX Date Command Examples” and Linux != UNIX. Nevertheless, your suggestion is accepted :). Thanks!

5 priyanka July 5, 2011

very nice contain in this site……….useful very much in study…………..

6 learner July 13, 2011

will date –version work in linux? why is the output different that echo “–version” | date

7 Philippe Petrinko July 14, 2011

Hi Learner,

Right way to give parameters on command line is:

date –version

When you want a program to use some input from a pipe is:

echo “some text used as input” | tr “[[:lower:]]” “[[:upper:]]”

But these are two really different functionalities. They are not equivalent at all, so they cannot yield the same.

– Philippe

8 Learner July 14, 2011

Consider – echo “–version” | date
here echo “–version” will give the output –version , which will act as an input to date. .
so we should get date –version.

But we do not get the same output from echo “–version” | date
and date –version. Can you please explain why the output is different.

9 Philippe Petrinko July 14, 2011: You confuse [standard input usage] with [parameters on the command line] which are different kind of inputs, which cannot be exchanged.
The genuine way to give parameters to a command is to give them on the program call, which is made on the command line.
There a other ways to achieve parameter passing to a command, such as using a specific file, or using environment variables.
On the other hand, standard input is commonly used to give _data_ to process, not parameters.
As a matter of facts, [date] command does make any use of standard input.
So you can pipe _anything_ you want, [date] won’t ever use it. You might have pipe (with echo) any text, [date] won’t use it.
Make sure by Reading The Fantastic Manual,
by issuing the command: man date
Do you think you get the point?
Reply