date
Purpose
Display the current date and time or set a new date and time.
Syntax
date [options] [+ format ]
date [-su] [ MMDDHHMM [[ CC ] YY ][. SS ]]
Options
-u displays or sets the time using Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
Description
The date command alone displays the current date and time. Using the + format argument, you can specify a display format for the date and time. For a complete listing of the format specification, type man date.To set the date, use date followed by the date and time in the MMDDHHMM format, where each character is a digit (MM is the month, DD is the day, HH the hour, and MM the minutes). You can optionally specify the year (YY ) and century (CC ) as well.