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unixdate.md

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unixdate

Purpose

Invoke date command using Unix format on Windoze

Syntax

Syntax: unixdate [date options]

Options and arguments

See options and arguments for date such this on this man page

Example

$ unixdate                       # simplest form of the command
Tue Apr  3 08:22:23 EDT 2018

$ unixdate -u                    # specify -u along and Unix format will still be added
Tue Apr  3 12:22:29 UTC 2018

$ unixdate +%Y%m%d%H%M%S         # specify a specific format, Unix format is avoided
20180403082255

$ /usr/bin/date                  # you can still get the "normal Windoze output" since you're not using the frontend at all
Tue, Apr  3, 2018  8:26:13 AM

$ alias date=unixdate            # override /usr/bin/date with an alias
$ date -R                        # alternate way of specifiying a format
Tue, 03 Apr 2018 08:54:08 -0400

$

Notes

  • This script was created specifically with Windoze shells in mind (Cygwin and Git bash) that print the date in a style inconsistent with a regular Unix shell. There's nothing that stops you from using this script on a real Unix system but there's no purpose because the date command works as you might expect.
  • If you don't specify your own format string, the script will supply a format string to print the date and time in the style you would see on a Unix system.
  • You might want to set up an alias to this script so that any time you type date in a Windoze shell, you'll run this script instead. I would encourage you add such an alias from your ~/.bashrc but it's up to you.

Known Bugs

  • I take a fairly simple approach to seeing if a format is specified which can case the frontend. For instance, you specify -u (UTC time) and -R (synonymous with --rfc-2822) without an intervening blank, the frontend isn't aware that you want an alternate format. It tries to specify the Unix format which conflicts with --rfc-2822 and an error is raised:

    $ date -uR
date: multiple output formats specified
$ date -u -R
Mon, 16 Apr 2018 19:13:20 +0000
$

    Obviously, an easy to solve this is to separate the options.