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Appendix C Date/time Format String

This appendix documents the format specifications for outputting date/time values. It is used, in particular, by the mail utility (see headline).

Essentially, it is a reproduction of the man page for GNU strftime function. Some of the conversion specifiers might not be available on all systems, due to differences in ‘strftime’ between systems. If unsure, please consult strftime in the strftime(3) man page.

Ordinary characters placed in the format string are reproduced without conversion. Conversion specifiers are introduced by a ‘%’ character, and are replaced as follows:

%aThe abbreviated weekday name according to the current locale.
%AThe full weekday name according to the current locale.
%bThe abbreviated month name according to the current locale.
%BThe full month name according to the current locale.
%cThe preferred date and time representation for the current locale.
%CThe century number (year/100) as a 2-digit integer.
%dThe day of the month as a decimal number (range 01 to 31).
%DEquivalent to ‘%m/%d/%y’.
%eLike ‘%d’, the day of the month as a decimal number, but a leading zero is replaced by a space.
%EModifier: use alternative format, see below (see conversion specs).
%FEquivalent to ‘%Y-%m-%d’ (the ISO 8601 date format).
%GThe ISO 8601 year with century as a decimal number. The 4-digit year corresponding to the ISO week number (see ‘%V’). This has the same format and value as ‘%y’, except that if the ISO week number belongs to the previous or next year, that year is used instead.
%gLike ‘%G’, but without century, i.e., with a 2-digit year (00-99).
%hEquivalent to ‘%b’.
%HThe hour as a decimal number using a 24-hour clock (range 00 to 23).
%IThe hour as a decimal number using a 12-hour clock (range 01 to 12).
%jThe day of the year as a decimal number (range 001 to 366).
%kThe hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number (range 0 to 23); single digits are preceded by a blank. (See also ‘%H’.)
%lThe hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number (range 1 to 12); single digits are preceded by a blank. (See also ‘%I’.)
%mThe month as a decimal number (range 01 to 12).
%MThe minute as a decimal number (range 00 to 59).
%nA newline character.
%OModifier: use alternative format, see below (see conversion specs).
%pEither ‘AM’ or ‘PM’ according to the given time value, or the corresponding strings for the current locale. Noon is treated as ‘pm’ and midnight as ‘am’.
%PLike ‘%p’ but in lowercase: ‘am’ or ‘pm’ or a corresponding string for the current locale.
%rThe time in ‘a.m.’ or ‘p.m.’ notation. In the POSIX locale this is equivalent to ‘%I:%M:%S %p’.
%RThe time in 24-hour notation (‘%H:%M’). For a version including the seconds, see ‘%T’ below.
%sThe number of seconds since the Epoch, i.e., since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC.
%SThe second as a decimal number (range 00 to 61).
%tA tab character.
%TThe time in 24-hour notation (‘%H:%M:%S’).
%uThe day of the week as a decimal, range 1 to 7, Monday being 1. See also ‘%w’.
%UThe week number of the current year as a decimal number, range 00 to 53, starting with the first Sunday as the first day of week 01. See also ‘%V’ and ‘%W’.
%VThe ISO 8601:1988 week number of the current year as a decimal number, range 01 to 53, where week 1 is the first week that has at least 4 days in the current year, and with Monday as the first day of the week. See also ‘%U’ and ‘%W’.
%wThe day of the week as a decimal, range 0 to 6, Sunday being 0. See also ‘%u’.
%WThe week number of the current year as a decimal number, range 00 to 53, starting with the first Monday as the first day of week 01.
%xThe preferred date representation for the current locale without the time.
%XThe preferred time representation for the current locale without the date.
%yThe year as a decimal number without a century (range 00 to 99).
%YThe year as a decimal number including the century.
%zThe time-zone as hour offset from GMT. Required to emit RFC822-conformant dates (using ‘%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z’)
%ZThe time zone or name or abbreviation.
%+The date and time in date(1) format.
%%A literal ‘%’ character.

Some conversion specifiers can be modified by preceding them by the ‘E’ or ‘O’ modifier to indicate that an alternative format should be used. If the alternative format or specification does not exist for the current locale, the behaviour will be as if the unmodified conversion specification were used. The Single Unix Specification mentions ‘%Ec’, ‘%EC’, ‘%Ex’, ‘%EX’, ‘%Ry’, ‘%EY’, ‘%Od’, ‘%Oe’, ‘%OH’, ‘%OI’, ‘%Om’, ‘%OM’, ‘%OS’, ‘%Ou’, ‘%OU’, ‘%OV’, ‘%Ow’, ‘%OW’, ‘%Oy’, where the effect of the ‘O’ modifier is to use alternative numeric symbols (say, roman numerals), and that of the ‘E’ modifier is to use a locale-dependent alternative representation.

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