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author | Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> | 2001-01-13 05:59:29 +0000 |
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committer | Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> | 2001-01-13 05:59:29 +0000 |
commit | 188ff43355e1bda8cf19c2402c4bfe88bd637059 (patch) | |
tree | 7765d25c16e42aac693179b156ab3c636f618777 /doc | |
parent | b4c3a9637b513e0f31d9c05af723a8bb4e1788e4 (diff) | |
download | tar-188ff43355e1bda8cf19c2402c4bfe88bd637059.tar.gz |
Mention that only English is supported.
Show how to use "date" so that the output is acceptable to getdate.
Mention Z as an abbreviation for UTC.
Diffstat (limited to 'doc')
-rw-r--r-- | doc/getdate.texi | 34 |
1 files changed, 32 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/doc/getdate.texi b/doc/getdate.texi index f5966bef..07a85ced 100644 --- a/doc/getdate.texi +++ b/doc/getdate.texi @@ -100,6 +100,34 @@ When a month is written this way, it is still considered to be written numerically, instead of being ``spelled in full''; this changes the allowed strings. +@cindex language, in dates +In the current implementation, only English is supported for words and +abbreviations like @samp{AM}, @samp{DST}, @samp{EST}, @samp{first}, +@samp{January}, @samp{Sunday}, @samp{tomorrow}, and @samp{year}. + +@cindex language, in dates +@cindex time zone item +The output of @command{date} is not always acceptable as a date string, +not only because of the language problem, but also because there is no +standard meaning for time zone items like @samp{IST}. When using +@command{date} to generate a date string intended to be parsed later, +specify a date format that is independent of language and that does not +use time zone items other than @samp{UTC} and @samp{Z}. Here are some +ways to do this: + +@example +$ LC_ALL=C TZ=UTC0 date +Fri Dec 15 19:48:05 UTC 2000 +$ TZ=UTC0 date +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%SZ" +2000-12-15 19:48:05Z +$ date --iso-8601=seconds # a GNU extension +2000-12-15T11:48:05-0800 +$ date --rfc-822 # a GNU extension +Fri, 15 Dec 2000 11:48:05 -0800 +$ date +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %z" # %z is a GNU extension. +2000-12-15 11:48:05 -0800 +@end example + @cindex case, ignored in dates @cindex comments, in dates Alphabetic case is completely ignored in dates. Comments may be introduced @@ -238,13 +266,15 @@ but not both. @cindex time zone item A @dfn{time zone item} specifies an international time zone, indicated -by a small set of letters, e.g., @samp{UTC} for Coordinated Universal +by a small set of letters, e.g., @samp{UTC} or @samp{Z} +for Coordinated Universal Time. Any included periods are ignored. By following a non-daylight-saving time zone by the string @samp{DST} in a separate word (that is, separated by some white space), the corresponding daylight saving time zone may be specified. -Time zone items are obsolescent and are not recommended, because they +Time zone items other than @samp{UTC} and @samp{Z} +are obsolescent and are not recommended, because they are ambiguous; for example, @samp{EST} has a different meaning in Australia than in the United States. Instead, it's better to use unambiguous numeric time zone corrections like @samp{-0500}, as |