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date -- Command Print/set the date and time date [-s] [-u] [[yymmdd]hhmm[.ss]] date sets or prints prints the date and time of day. If invoked without an argument, date prints the current date and time. It looks for the environmental variable TIMEZONE, which specifies local time zone and daylight saving time information. For details on the format of this variable, see the Lexicon entries for TIMEZONE and ctime(). If invoked with a numeric argument (that is, one that consists of just digits, with no prefix), date interprets that argument as giving the current date and time, and uses it to set the current system time. The string must have the format yymmddhhmm[ss]; the fields must be defined as follows: yy Year (00-99) mm Month (01-12) dd Day (01-31) hh Hour (00-23) mm Minute (00-59) ss Seconds (00-59) For example, typing date 940612141233 sets the date to June 12, 1994, and the time to 2:12:33 P.M. At least hh and mm must be specified -- the rest are optional. date will complain and refuse to change the time should you attempt to set an impossible date or time, e.g., the date to February 30 or the time to 25 o'clock. Note that the COHERENT command ATclock returns the date and time as recorded by your computer's internal clock. To reset the time as COHERENT understands it to the time as your computer understands it, use the command: date `/etc/ATclock` If you use option -s on date's command line, date does not convert to daylight savings time when it sets the time. If you use option -u on date's command line, date sets and prints the date and time in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) rather than in your local time. See Also ATclock, commands, ctime(), printf(), time, TIMEZONE Notes Only the superuser root can change the system's date or time. The COHERENT version of the date command differs from the UNIX version in that the last two fields of its output are reversed. For example, the UNIX output of date reads Sun Jan 13 12:02:09 CST 1991 where the COHERENT output reads: Sun Jan 13 12:02:09 1991 CST This may be important when importing UNIX shell commands into COHERENT.