sys date

vb sys date [OPTIONS] [+FORMAT]

Description

Show the current system time and date

Options

-u, --utc

Use UTC instead of local time (default)

--local

Use local time instead of UTC

-r, --reference FILE

Use FILE’s mtime instead of current time

+FORMAT

Format output using GNU date-style sequences (e.g. +%Y-%m-%d)

FORMAT controls the output. Interpreted sequences are:

%%     a literal %
%a     locale's abbreviated weekday name (e.g., Sun)
%A     locale's full weekday name (e.g., Sunday)
%b     locale's abbreviated month name (e.g., Jan)
%B     locale's full month name (e.g., January)
%c     locale's date and time (e.g., Thu Mar  3 23:05:25 2005)
%C     century; like %Y, except omit last two digits (e.g., 20)
%d     day of month (e.g., 01)
%D     date; same as %m/%d/%y
%e     day of month, space padded; same as %_d
%F     full date; like %+4Y-%m-%d
%g     last two digits of year of ISO week number (see %G)
%G     year of ISO week number (see %V)
%h     same as %b
%H     hour (00..23)
%I     hour (01..12)
%j     day of year (001..366)
%k     hour, space padded ( 0..23); same as %_H
%l     hour, space padded ( 1..12); same as %_I
%m     month (01..12)
%M     minute (00..59)
%n     a newline
%N     nanoseconds (000000000..999999999)
%p     locale's equivalent of either AM or PM; blank if not known
%P     like %p, but lower case
%q     quarter of year (1..4)
%r     locale's 12-hour clock time (e.g., 11:11:04 PM)
%R     24-hour hour and minute; same as %H:%M
%s     seconds since the Epoch (1970-01-01 00:00 UTC)
%S     second (00..60)
%t     a tab
%T     time; same as %H:%M:%S
%u     day of week (1..7); 1 is Monday
%U     week number of year, with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)
%V     ISO week number, with Monday as first day of week (01..53)
%w     day of week (0..6); 0 is Sunday
%W     week number of year, with Monday as first day of week (00..53)
%x     locale's date representation (e.g., 12/31/99)
%X     locale's time representation (e.g., 23:13:48)
%y     last two digits of year (00..99)
%Y     year
%z     +hhmm numeric time zone (e.g., -0400)
%:z    +hh:mm numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00)
%::z   +hh:mm:ss numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00:00)
%:::z  numeric time zone with : to necessary precision (e.g., -04, +05:30)
%Z     alphabetic time zone abbreviation (e.g., EDT)

By default, date pads numeric fields with zeroes. Optional flags after %:

-  (hyphen) do not pad the field
_  (underscore) pad with spaces
0  (zero) pad with zeros
+  pad with zeros, and put '+' before future years with >4 digits
^  use upper case if possible
#  use opposite case if possible

After any flags comes an optional field width, then an optional modifier:

E  use the locale's alternate representations if available
O  use the locale's alternate numeric symbols if available

Examples

• Show the current UTC date in ISO 8601 format

$ vb sys date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ
2026-03-20T03:03:58Z

• Show local time with a custom format

$ vb sys date --local +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M
2026-03-20T11:03

• Show the modification time of a file

$ vb sys date -r report.txt +%F
2026-03-20