ok, here is the command for:

File: coreutils.info,  Node: date invocation,  Next: uname invocation,  Up: System context



21.1 `date': Print or set system date and time

==============================================



Synopses:



     date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT]

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



   Invoking `date' with no FORMAT argument is equivalent to invoking it

with a default format that depends on the `LC_TIME' locale category.

In the default C locale, this format is `'+%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y'',

so the output looks like `Thu Mar  3 13:47:51 PST 2005'.



   Normally, `date' uses the time zone rules indicated by the `TZ'

environment variable, or the system default rules if `TZ' is not set.

*Note Specifying the Time Zone with `TZ': (libc)TZ Variable.



   If given an argument that starts with a `+', `date' prints the

current date and time (or the date and time specified by the `--date'

option, see below) in the format defined by that argument, which is

similar to that of the `strftime' function.  Except for conversion

specifiers, which start with `%', characters in the format string are

printed unchanged.  The conversion specifiers are described below.



   An exit status of zero indicates success, and a nonzero value

indicates failure.



* Menu:



* Time conversion specifiers::     %[HIklMNpPrRsSTXzZ]

* Date conversion specifiers::     %[aAbBcCdDeFgGhjmuUVwWxyY]

* Literal conversion specifiers::  %[%nt]

* Padding and other flags::        Pad with zeroes, spaces, etc.

* Setting the time::               Changing the system clock.

* Options for date::               Instead of the current time.

* Examples of date::               Examples.



File: coreutils.info,  Node: Time conversion specifiers,  Next: Date conversion specifiers,  Up: date invocation



21.1.1 Time conversion specifiers

---------------------------------



`date' conversion specifiers related to times.



`%H'

     hour (`00'...`23')



`%I'

     hour (`01'...`12')



`%k'

     hour (` 0'...`23').  This is a GNU extension.



`%l'

     hour (` 1'...`12').  This is a GNU extension.



`%M'

     minute (`00'...`59')



`%N'

     nanoseconds (`000000000'...`999999999').  This is a GNU extension.



`%p'

     locale's equivalent of either `AM' or `PM'; blank in many locales.

     Noon is treated as `PM' and midnight as `AM'.



`%P'

     like `%p', except lower case.  This is a GNU extension.



`%r'

     locale's 12-hour clock time (e.g., `11:11:04 PM')



`%R'

     24-hour hour and minute.  Same as `%H:%M'.  This is a GNU

     extension.



`%s'

     seconds since the epoch, i.e., since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC.

     Leap seconds are not counted unless leap second support is

     available.  *Note %s-examples::, for examples.  This is a GNU

     extension.



`%S'

     second (`00'...`60').  This may be `60' if leap seconds are

     supported.



`%T'

     24-hour hour, minute, and second.  Same as `%H:%M:%S'.



`%X'

     locale's time representation (e.g., `23:13:48')



`%z'

     RFC 2822/ISO 8601 style numeric time zone (e.g., `-0600' or

     `+0530'), or nothing if no time zone is determinable.  This value

     reflects the numeric time zone appropriate for the current time,

     using the time zone rules specified by the `TZ' environment

     variable.  The time (and optionally, the time zone rules) can be

     overridden by the `--date' option.  This is a GNU extension.



`%:z'

     RFC 3339/ISO 8601 style numeric time zone with `:' (e.g., `-06:00'

     or `+05:30'), or nothing if no time zone is determinable.  This is

     a GNU extension.



`%::z'

     Numeric time zone to the nearest second with `:' (e.g.,

     `-06:00:00' or `+05:30:00'), or nothing if no time zone is

     determinable.  This is a GNU extension.



`%:::z'

     Numeric time zone with `:' using the minimum necessary precision

     (e.g., `-06', `+05:30', or `-04:56:02'), or nothing if no time

     zone is determinable.  This is a GNU extension.



`%Z'

     alphabetic time zone abbreviation (e.g., `EDT'), or nothing if no

     time zone is determinable.  See `%z' for how it is determined.



File: coreutils.info,  Node: Date conversion specifiers,  Next: Literal conversion specifiers,  Prev: Time conversion specifiers,  Up: date invocation



21.1.2 Date conversion specifiers

---------------------------------



`date' conversion specifiers related to dates.



`%a'

     locale's abbreviated weekday name (e.g., `Sun')



`%A'

     locale's full weekday name, variable length (e.g., `Sunday')



`%b'

     locale's abbreviated month name (e.g., `Jan')



`%B'

     locale's full month name, variable length (e.g., `January')



`%c'

     locale's date and time (e.g., `Thu Mar  3 23:05:25 2005')



`%C'

     century.  This is like `%Y', except the last two digits are

     omitted.  For example, it is `20' if `%Y' is `2000', and is `-0'

     if `%Y' is `-001'.  It is normally at least two characters, but it

     may be more.



`%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 in ISO 8601 format; same as `%Y-%m-%d'.  This is a good

     choice for a date format, as it is standard and is easy to sort in

     the usual case where years are in the range 0000...9999.  This is

     a GNU extension.



`%g'

     The year corresponding to the ISO week number, but without the

     century (range `00' through `99').  This has the same format and

     value as `%y', except that if the ISO week number (see `%V')

     belongs to the previous or next year, that year is used instead.

     This is a GNU extension.



`%G'

     The year corresponding to the ISO week number.  This has the same

     format and value as `%Y', except that if the ISO week number (see

     `%V') belongs to the previous or next year, that year is used

     instead.  This is a GNU extension.



`%h'

     same as `%b'



`%j'

     day of year (`001'...`366')



`%m'

     month (`01'...`12')



`%u'

     day of week (`1'...`7') with `1' corresponding to Monday



`%U'

     week number of year with Sunday as first day of week (`00'...`53').

     Days in a new year preceding the first Sunday are in week zero.



`%V'

     week number of year with Monday as first day of the week as a

     decimal (`01'...`53').  If the week containing January 1 has four

     or more days in the new year, then it is considered week 1;

     otherwise, it is week 53 of the previous year, and the next week

     is week 1.  (See the ISO 8601 standard.)



`%w'

     day of week (`0'...`6') with 0 corresponding to Sunday



`%W'

     week number of year with Monday as first day of week (`00'...`53').

     Days in a new year preceding the first Monday are in week zero.



`%x'

     locale's date representation (e.g., `12/31/99')



`%y'

     last two digits of year (`00'...`99')



`%Y'

     year.  This is normally at least four characters, but it may be

     more.  Year `0000' precedes year `0001', and year `-001' precedes

     year `0000'.



File: coreutils.info,  Node: Literal conversion specifiers,  Next: Padding and other flags,  Prev: Date conversion specifiers,  Up: date invocation



21.1.3 Literal conversion specifiers

------------------------------------



`date' conversion specifiers that produce literal strings.



`%%'

     a literal %



`%n'

     a newline



`%t'

     a horizontal tab



File: coreutils.info,  Node: Padding and other flags,  Next: Setting the time,  Prev: Literal conversion specifiers,  Up: date invocation



21.1.4 Padding and other flags

------------------------------



Unless otherwise specified, `date' normally pads numeric fields with

zeroes, so that, for example, numeric months are always output as two

digits.  Seconds since the epoch are not padded, though, since there is

no natural width for them.



   As a GNU extension, `date' recognizes any of the following optional

flags after the `%':



`-'

     (hyphen) Do not pad the field; useful if the output is intended for

     human consumption.



`_'

     (underscore) Pad with spaces; useful if you need a fixed number of

     characters in the output, but zeroes are too distracting.



`0'

     (zero) Pad with zeros even if the conversion specifier would

     normally pad with spaces.



`^'

     Use upper case characters if possible.



`#'

     Use opposite case characters if possible.  A field that is

     normally upper case becomes lower case, and vice versa.



Here are some examples of padding:



     date +%d/%m -d "Feb 1"

     => 01/02

     date +%-d/%-m -d "Feb 1"

     => 1/2

     date +%_d/%_m -d "Feb 1"

     =>  1/ 2



   As a GNU extension, you can specify the field width (after any flag,

if present) as a decimal number.  If the natural size of the output is

of the field has less than the specified number of characters, the

result is written right adjusted and padded to the given size.  For

example, `%9B' prints the right adjusted month name in a field of width

9.



   An optional modifier can follow the optional flag and width

specification.  The modifiers are:



`E'

     Use the locale's alternate representation for date and time.  This

     modifier applies to the `%c', `%C', `%x', `%X', `%y' and `%Y'

     conversion specifiers.  In a Japanese locale, for example, `%Ex'

     might yield a date format based on the Japanese Emperors' reigns.



`O'

     Use the locale's alternate numeric symbols for numbers.  This

     modifier applies only to numeric conversion specifiers.



   If the format supports the modifier but no alternate representation

is available, it is ignored.



File: coreutils.info,  Node: Setting the time,  Next: Options for date,  Prev: Padding and other flags,  Up: date invocation



21.1.5 Setting the time

-----------------------



If given an argument that does not start with `+', `date' sets the

system clock to the date and time specified by that argument (as

described below).  You must have appropriate privileges to set the

system clock.  The `--date' and `--set' options may not be used with

such an argument.  The `--universal' option may be used with such an

argument to indicate that the specified date and time are relative to

Coordinated Universal Time rather than to the local time zone.



   The argument must consist entirely of digits, which have the

following meaning:



`MM'

     month



`DD'

     day within month



`hh'

     hour



`mm'

     minute



`CC'

     first two digits of year (optional)



`YY'

     last two digits of year (optional)



`ss'

     second (optional)



   The `--set' option also sets the system clock; see the next section.



File: coreutils.info,  Node: Options for date,  Next: Examples of date,  Prev: Setting the time,  Up: date invocation



21.1.6 Options for `date'

-------------------------



The program accepts the following options.  Also see *Note Common

options::.



`-d DATESTR'

`--date=DATESTR'

     Display the date and time specified in DATESTR instead of the

     current date and time.  DATESTR can be in almost any common

     format.  It can contain month names, time zones, `am' and `pm',

     `yesterday', etc.  For example, `--date="2004-02-27

     14:19:13.489392193 +0530"' specifies the instant of time that is

     489,392,193 nanoseconds after February 27, 2004 at 2:19:13 PM in a

     time zone that is 5 hours and 30 minutes east of UTC.  *Note Date

     input formats::.



`-f DATEFILE'

`--file=DATEFILE'

     Parse each line in DATEFILE as with `-d' and display the resulting

     date and time.  If DATEFILE is `-', use standard input.  This is

     useful when you have many dates to process, because the system

     overhead of starting up the `date' executable many times can be

     considerable.



`-r FILE'

`--reference=FILE'

     Display the date and time of the last modification of FILE,

     instead of the current date and time.



`-R'

`--rfc-822'

`--rfc-2822'

     Display the date and time using the format `%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S

     %z', evaluated in the C locale so abbreviations are always in

     English.  For example:



          Fri, 09 Sep 2005 13:51:39 -0700



     This format conforms to Internet RFCs 2822

     (ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2822.txt) and 822

     (ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc822.txt), the current and

     previous standards for Internet email.



`--rfc-3339=TIMESPEC'

     Display the date using a format specified by Internet RFC 3339

     (ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3339.txt).  This is a subset

     of the ISO 8601 format, except that it also permits applications

     to use a space rather than a `T' to separate dates from times.

     Unlike the other standard formats, RFC 3339 format is always

     suitable as input for the `--date' (`-d') and `--file' (`-f')

     options, regardless of the current locale.



     The argument TIMESPEC specifies how much of the time to include.

     It can be one of the following:



    `date'

          Print just the full-date, e.g., `2005-09-14'.  This is

          equivalent to the format `%Y-%m-%d'.



    `seconds'

          Print the full-date and full-time separated by a space, e.g.,

          `2005-09-14 00:56:06+05:30'.  The output ends with a numeric

          time-offset; here the `+05:30' means that local time is five

          hours and thirty minutes east of UTC.  This is equivalent to

          the format `%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S%:z'.



    `ns'

          Like `seconds', but also print nanoseconds, e.g., `2005-09-14

          00:56:06.998458565+05:30'.  This is equivalent to the format

          `%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%N%:z'.





`-s DATESTR'

`--set=DATESTR'

     Set the date and time to DATESTR.  See `-d' above.



`-u'

`--utc'

`--universal'

     Use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) by operating as if the `TZ'

     environment variable were set to the string `UTC0'.  Coordinated

     Universal Time is often called "Greenwich Mean Time" (GMT) for

     historical reasons.



File: coreutils.info,  Node: Examples of date,  Prev: Options for date,  Up: date invocation



21.1.7 Examples of `date'

-------------------------



Here are a few examples.  Also see the documentation for the `-d'

option in the previous section.



   * To print the date of the day before yesterday:



          date --date='2 days ago'



   * To print the date of the day three months and one day hence:



          date --date='3 months 1 day'



   * To print the day of year of Christmas in the current year:



          date --date='25 Dec' +%j



   * To print the current full month name and the day of the month:



          date '+%B %d'



     But this may not be what you want because for the first nine days

     of the month, the `%d' expands to a zero-padded two-digit field,

     for example `date -d 1may '+%B %d'' will print `May 01'.



   * To print a date without the leading zero for one-digit days of the

     month, you can use the (GNU extension) `-' flag to suppress the

     padding altogether:



          date -d 1may '+%B %-d



   * To print the current date and time in the format required by many

     non-GNU versions of `date' when setting the system clock:



          date +%m%d%H%M%Y.%S



   * To set the system clock forward by two minutes:



          date --set='+2 minutes'



   * To print the date in RFC 2822 format, use `date --rfc-2822'.  Here

     is some example output:



          Fri, 09 Sep 2005 13:51:39 -0700



   * To convert a date string to the number of seconds since the epoch

     (which is 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC), use the `--date' option with

     the `%s' format.  That can be useful in sorting and/or graphing

     and/or comparing data by date.  The following command outputs the

     number of the seconds since the epoch for the time two minutes

     after the epoch:



          date --date='1970-01-01 00:02:00 +0000' +%s

          120



     If you do not specify time zone information in the date string,

     `date' uses your computer's idea of the time zone when

     interpreting the string.  For example, if your computer's time

     zone is that of Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was then 5 hours

     (i.e., 18,000 seconds) behind UTC:



          # local time zone used

          date --date='1970-01-01 00:02:00' +%s

          18120



   * If you're sorting or graphing dated data, your raw date values may

     be represented as seconds since the epoch.  But few people can

     look at the date `946684800' and casually note "Oh, that's the

     first second of the year 2000 in Greenwich, England."



          date --date='2000-01-01 UTC' +%s

          946684800



     An alternative is to use the `--utc' (`-u') option.  Then you may

     omit `UTC' from the date string.  Although this produces the same

     result for `%s' and many other format sequences, with a time zone

     offset different from zero, it would give a different result for

     zone-dependent formats like `%z'.



          date -u --date=2000-01-01 +%s

          946684800



     To convert such an unwieldy number of seconds back to a more

     readable form, use a command like this:



          # local time zone used

          date -d '1970-01-01 UTC 946684800 seconds' +"%Y-%m-%d %T %z"

          1999-12-31 19:00:00 -0500



     Often it is better to output UTC-relative date and time:



          date -u -d '1970-01-01 946684800 seconds' +"%Y-%m-%d %T %z"

          2000-01-01 00:00:00 +0000

this is another command you can use:

                                                                TIME(1)



NAME

       time - time a simple command or give resource usage



SYNOPSIS

       time [options] command [arguments...]



DESCRIPTION

       The  time command runs the specified program command with the given arguments.  When com-

       mand finishes, time writes a message to standard error  giving  timing  statistics  about

       this  program run.  These statistics consist of (i) the elapsed real time between invoca-

       tion and termination, (ii) the user CPU time (the sum of  the  tms_utime  and  tms_cutime

       values  in  a struct tms as returned by times(2)), and (iii) the system CPU time (the sum

       of the tms_stime and tms_cstime values in a struct tms as returned by times(2)).



OPTION

       -p     When in the POSIX locale, use the precise traditional format

                   "real %fnuser %fnsys %fn"

              (with numbers in seconds) where the number of decimals in the  output  for  %f  is

              unspecified  but  is  sufficient  to express the clock tick accuracy, and at least

              one.



ENVIRONMENT

       The variables LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, LC_NUMERIC, NLSPATH and PATH are used.

       The  last  one  to search for command.  The remaining ones for the text and formatting of

       the output.



EXIT STATUS

       If command was invoked, the exit status is that of command.  Otherwise it is 127 if  com-

       mand  could  not  be  found,  126 if it could be found but could not be invoked, and some

       other non-zero value (1-125) if something else went wrong.



SEE ALSO

       times(2)



GNU VERSION

       Below a description of the GNU 1.7 version of time.  Disregarding the name of  the  util-

       ity,  GNU  makes it output lots of useful information, not only about time used, but also

       on other resources like memory, I/O and IPC calls (where available).  The output is  for-

       matted  using a format string that can be specified using the -f option or the TIME envi-

       ronment variable.



       The default format string is

          %Uuser %Ssystem %Eelapsed %PCPU (%Xtext+%Ddata %Mmax)k

          %Iinputs+%Ooutputs (%Fmajor+%Rminor)pagefaults %Wswaps



       When the -p option is given the (portable) output format

          real %e

          user %U

          sys %S

       is used.



   The format string

       The format is interpreted in the usual printf-like way.  Ordinary characters are directly

       copied,  tab,  newline  and  backslash are escaped using t, n and \, a percent sign is

       represented by %%, and otherwise % indicates a conversion. The program time  will  always

       add  a trailing newline itself.  The conversions follow. All of those used by tcsh(1) are

       supported.



       Time



       %E     Elapsed real time (in [hours:]minutes:seconds).



       %e     (Not in tcsh.) Elapsed real time (in seconds).



       %S     Total number of CPU-seconds that the process spent in kernel mode.



       %U     Total number of CPU-seconds that the process spent in user mode.



       %P     Percentage of the CPU that this job got, computed as (%U + %S) / %E.



       Memory



       %M     Maximum resident set size of the process during its lifetime, in Kbytes.



       %t     (Not in tcsh.) Average resident set size of the process, in Kbytes.



       %K     Average total (data+stack+text) memory use of the process, in Kbytes.



       %D     Average size of the processâs unshared data area, in Kbytes.



       %p     (Not in tcsh.) Average size of the processâs unshared stack space, in Kbytes.



       %X     Average size of the processâs shared text space, in Kbytes.



       %Z     (Not in tcsh.) Systemâs page size, in bytes.  This is a per-system  constant,  but

              varies between systems.



       %F     Number  of  major  page faults that occurred while the process was running.  These

              are faults where the page has to be read in from disk.



       %R     Number of minor, or recoverable, page faults.  These are faults for pages that are

              not  valid  but  which have not yet been claimed by other virtual pages.  Thus the

              data in the page is still valid but the system tables must be updated.



       %W     Number of times the process was swapped out of main memory.



       %c     Number of times the process was context-switched involuntarily (because  the  time

              slice expired).



       %w     Number  of  waits:  times  that  the program was context-switched voluntarily, for

              instance while waiting for an I/O operation to complete.



       I/O



       %I     Number of file system inputs by the process.

       %O     Number of file system outputs by the process.



       %r     Number of socket messages received by the process.



       %s     Number of socket messages sent by the process.



       %k     Number of signals delivered to the process.



       %C     (Not in tcsh.) Name and command line arguments of the command being timed.



       %x     (Not in tcsh.) Exit status of the command.



GNU OPTIONS

       -f FORMAT, --format=FORMAT

              Specify output format, possibly overriding the format specified in the environment

              variable TIME.



       -p, --portability

              Use the portable output format.



       -o FILE, --output=FILE

              Do not send the results to stderr, but overwrite the specified file.



       -a, --append

              (Used together with -o.) Do not overwrite but append.



       -v, --verbose

              Give very verbose output about all the program knows about.



GNU STANDARD OPTIONS

       --help Print a usage message on standard output and exit successfully.



       -V, --version

              Print version information on standard output, then exit successfully.



       --     Terminate option list.



BUGS

       Not  all  resources  are measured by all versions of Unix, so some of the values might be

       reported as zero.  The present selection was mostly inspired by the data provided by  4.2

       or 4.3BSD.



       GNU  time  version  1.7  is  not  yet  localized.   Thus, it does not implement the POSIX

       requirements.



       The environment variable TIME was badly chosen.  It is not unusual for systems like auto-

       conf  or  make  to  use  environment variables with the name of a utility to override the

       utility to be used. Uses like MORE or TIME for options to programs  (instead  of  program

       path names) tend to lead to difficulties.



       It  seems  unfortunate  that  -o  overwrites instead of appends.  (That is, the -a option

       should be the default.)



       Mail suggestions and bug reports for GNU time to



       -a, --append

              (Used together with -o.) Do not overwrite but append.



       -v, --verbose

              Give very verbose output about all the program knows about.



GNU STANDARD OPTIONS

       --help Print a usage message on standard output and exit successfully.



       -V, --version

              Print version information on standard output, then exit successfully.



       --     Terminate option list.



BUGS

       Not  all  resources  are measured by all versions of Unix, so some of the values might be

       reported as zero.  The present selection was mostly inspired by the data provided by  4.2

       or 4.3BSD.



       GNU  time  version  1.7  is  not  yet  localized.   Thus, it does not implement the POSIX

       requirements.



       The environment variable TIME was badly chosen.  It is not unusual for systems like auto-

       conf  or  make  to  use  environment variables with the name of a utility to override the

       utility to be used. Uses like MORE or TIME for options to programs  (instead  of  program

       path names) tend to lead to difficulties.



       It  seems  unfortunate  that  -o  overwrites instead of appends.  (That is, the -a option

       should be the default.)



       Mail suggestions and bug reports for GNU time to

       bug-utils@prep.ai.mit.edu

       Please include the version of time, which you can get by running

       time --version

       and the operating system and C compiler you used.



SEE ALSO

       tcsh(1), times(2), wait3(2)



AUTHORS

       David Keppel

              Original version



       David MacKenzie

              POSIXization, autoconfiscation, GNU getoptization, documentation, other bug

              fixes and improvements.



       Arne Henrik Juul

              Helped with portability



       Francois Pinard

              Helped with portability



                                  2000-12-11                           TIME(1)

if you wanted to display the date into one whole string you can use this command:



it will display this:



in my case right now its Jan 07 2008 so it displays 01072008 this is how i break it down:

01 = (month)
07 = (day)
2008 =(year)

i think this is similar to php time() function

how to open a.src.tar.gz file ..?