Date command sequences

From: date(1) — Linux manual page

Date command sequences

Escape codes and specials

Code	Example
%%	%
%t	(tab)
%n	(newline)

Numerics

Code	Description	Range
%Y	Year	2020
%m	Month	01..12
%H	Hour (24h)	00..23
%I	Hour (12h)	01..12
%S	Seconds	00..60
%N	Nanoseconds	000000000..999999999

Odd numerics

Code	Description	Range
%s	Seconds since Unix epoch	N/A
%j	Day of the year	001..366
%d	Day of the month	01
%u	Day of the week (1 is Monday)	1..7
%u	Week number of year (Sunday is the first week day)	00..53
%V	ISO week number of year (Monday is the first week day)	01..53
%q	Year quarter	1..4
%C	Century	20
%y	Last two digits of year	00..99

Spaced padded

Code	Description	Range	Manual equivalent
%k	Hour (24h)	0..23	%_H
%l	Hour (12h)	1..12	%_I
%e	Day of the month	01	%_d

Strings

Code	Description	Example
%a	Abbreviated weekday	Sun
%A	Full weekday	Sunday
%b / %h	Abbreviated month	Jan
%B	Full month	January
%p	Locale’s AM/PM	PM
%P	Locale’s AM/PM (lowercase)	pm
%Z	Alphabetic time zone abbreviation	EDT

Timezones

Code	Description	Example
%z	+hhmm numeric time zone	-0400
%:z	+hh:mm numeric time zone	-04:00
%::z	+hh:mm:ss numeric time zone	-04:00:00
%:::z	numeric time zone with : to necessary precision	-04, +05:30
%Z	Alphabetic time zone abbreviation	EDT

Templates

Code	Description	Example	Manual equivalent
%c	Locale’s date and time	Thu Mar 3 23:05:25 2005	N/A
%x	Locale’s date	12/31/99	N/A
%X	Locale’s time	23:13:48	N/A
%r	Locale’s time (12h)	11:11:04 PM	N/A
%R	24h time	11:11	%H:%M
%T	Time	11:11:04	%H:%M:%S
%D	Date	12/19/20	%m/%d/%y