top 10 examples of date command in Linux

The date command in Linux is used to display and set the system date and time. It is a powerful tool that can display the date and time in various formats, set the system date and time, and perform simple date calculations. 

Here are 10 examples of how the date command can be used in Linux:

Display the current date and time:

date

Output: Thu Mar 24 13:25:36 EDT 2022

Display the date and time in a specific format:

date +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"

Output: 2022-03-24 13:25:36

Display the date and time in UTC:

date -u

Output: Thu Mar 24 17:25:36 UTC 2022

Display the day of the week:

date +"%A"

Output: Thursday

Display the month in numeric form:

date +"%m"

Output: 03

Display the year:

date +"%Y"

Output: 2022

Set the system date and time:

sudo date --set "24 MAR 2022 13:30:00"

This command will set the system date and time to March 24, 2022, at 1:30 PM.

Perform date calculations:

date -d "1 week ago" +"%Y-%m-%d"

Output: 2022-03-17

Display the date and time in ISO 8601 format:

date --iso-8601=seconds

Output: 2022-03-24T13:25:36-0400

Display the date and time in RFC 2822 format:

date --rfc-2822

Output: Thu, 24 Mar 2022 13:25:36 -0400

These are just a few examples of the many ways the date command can be used in Linux. By using different options and formatting strings, you can display and manipulate the date and time in a variety of ways.