DATE(1)

NAME
date - print or set date and time

SYNOPSIS
date [-d time] [-u] [ +format | mmddHHMM[[CC]yy]]

DESCRIPTION
date prints the date and time according to locale(7) or format using strftime(3) or sets the date.

OPTIONS

-d time
    Print time given as the number of seconds since the Unix epoch 1970-01-01T00:00:00Z.

-u  Print or set UTC time instead of local time.

An operand with a leading plus (+) sign signals a user-defined format string using strftime(3) conversion specifications.

An operand without a leading plus sign is interpreted as a value for setting the system's current date and time. The canonical representation for setting the date and time is:

mm  The month of the year, from 01 to 12.
dd  The day of the month, from 01 to 31.
HH  The hour of the day, from 00 to 23.
MM  The minute of the hour, from 00 to 59.
CC  The first two digits of the year (the century).
yy  The second two digits of the year. If yy is specified, but CC is not, a value for yy between 69 and 99 results in a CC value of 19. Otherwise, a CC value of 20 is used.

The century and year are optional. The default is the current year.

STANDARDS
POSIX.1-2013.

The [-d] flag is an extension to that specification.