Re: `date` and timestamp format

[Bob Proulx]

Super Pik Master wrote:
> I've been trying to print a timestamp format (I mean seconds from 1 Jan 
> 1970) with `date` program from coreutils package.
> There is an option -d but it does not take the numerical timestamp as an 
> input.
> 
> Is there a chance to enhance the functionality by allowing the above? Or 
> add an option like -t to read timestamp and then print it in one of 
> allowed formats. It would be very convenient.

Look at the info documentation under "Examples of date" in the "date
invocation" section of the manual.

  date +%s
  1128263085

  date --date 'Sun, 02 Oct 2005 08:25:13 -0600' +%s
  1128263113

To convert that number back to human readable time use

  date -R -d '1970-01-01 UTC 1128263113 seconds'
  Sun, 02 Oct 2005 08:25:13 -0600

Bob