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Understanding the AIX date command format 

Question & Answer


Question

Why are there different formats for the 'date' command in different locales?

For example,

en_US.UTF-8: May 27, 2020 at 01:22:56 PM CDT

EN_US.UTF-8: Wed May 27 13:22:56 CDT 2020

en_US.ISO8859-1: Wed May 27 13:22:56 CDT 2020

C: Wed May 27 13:22:56 CDT 2020
 

Answer

The date command uses strftime to format the date format based on locale data. For the C (POSIX) locale, the format is hardcoded:  

format = "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
Wed May 27 13:22:56 CDT 2020

The following specifications are listed in the strftime documentation: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_aix_72/s_bostechref/strftime.html

%a: The abbreviated weekday name. 
%b: The abbreviated month name. 
%c: The day of the month as a decimal number [1,31]; a single digit is preceded by a space.
%H: The hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number [00,23]. 
%M: The minute as a decimal number [00,59]. 
%S:  The second as a decimal number [00,60]. 
%Y: The year as a decimal number (for example, 1997). 

You can view the locale's data by examining the LC_TIME values.

# locale -ck LC_TIME | grep d_t_fmt | grep -v era



Here are some examples of AIX UTF-8 locale date formats:
CS_CZ.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%a %e %b %Y %H:%M:%S"
St 27 kvě 2020 11:32:54

cs_CZ.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%e. %B %Y %H:%M:%S %Z"
27. května 2020 11:32:55 CDT

DE_DE.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%a %e %b %H:%M:%S %Y"
Mi 27 Mai 11:32:54 2020

de_DE.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%e. %B %Y %H:%M:%S %Z"
27. Mai 2020 11:32:55 CDT

EN_GB.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%a %e %b %H:%M:%S %Y"
Wed 27 May 11:32:54 2020

en_GB.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%e %B %Y %H:%M:%S %Z"
27 May 2020 11:32:55 CDT

EN_US.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
Wed May 27 11:32:55 CDT 2020

en_US.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%B %e, %Y at %I:%M:%S %p %Z"
May 27, 2020 at 11:32:55 AM CDT

ES_ES.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%a %e %b %H:%M:%S %Y"
mié 27 may 11:32:55 2020

es_ES.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%e de %B de %Y, %H:%M:%S %Z"
27 de mayo de 2020, 11:32:55 CDT

FR_FR.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%a %e %b %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
mer 27 mai 11:32:55 CDT 2020

fr_FR.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%e %B %Y %H:%M:%S %Z"
27 mai 2020 11:32:55 CDT

JA_JP.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
Wed May 27 11:32:55 CDT 2020

ja_JP.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%Y年%m月%e日 %H:%M:%S %Z"
2020年05月27日 11:32:55 CDT

KO_KR.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%Y년 %B %e일 %A %H시 %M분 %S초"
2020년 5월 27일 수요일 11시 32분 55초

PT_BR.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%a %e %b %Y %H:%M:%S"
Qua 27 Mai 2020 11:32:55

pt_BR.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%e de %B de %Y %H:%M:%S %Z"
27 de maio de 2020 11:32:55 CDT

SV_SE.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%a %b %e %H.%M.%S %Y"
ons maj 27 11.32.55 2020

sv_SE.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%e %B %Y %H:%M:%S %Z"
27 maj 2020 11:32:55 CDT

TH_TH.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%a %e %b %o %X"
 พ 27 พ.ค.  2563 11:32:55
 
th_TH.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%e %B %Y %H นาฬิกา %M นาที %S วินาที %Z"
27 พฤษภาคม 2020 11 นาฬิกา 32 นาที 55 วินาที CDT

ZH_CN.UTF-8
d_t_fmt="%EY%m月%d日  %A  %H时%M分%S秒"
公元2020年05月27日  星期三  11时32分55秒


Here are some Latin-1 locale date formats:
de_DE.ISO8859-1
d_t_fmt="%a %e %b %H:%M:%S %Y"
Mi 27 Mai 11:38:35 2020

en_GB.ISO8859-1
d_t_fmt="%a %e %b %H:%M:%S %Y"
Wed 27 May 11:38:35 2020

en_US.ISO8859-1
d_t_fmt="%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
Wed May 27 11:38:35 CDT 2020

fi_FI.ISO8859-1
d_t_fmt="%e. %Bta %Y klo %H.%M.%S"
27. toukokuuta 2020 klo 11.38.35

fr_FR.ISO8859-1
d_t_fmt="%a %e %b %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
mer 27 mai 11:38:35 CDT 2020

it_IT.ISO8859-1
d_t_fmt="%a %e %b %H.%M.%S %Y"
mer 27 mag 11.38.35 2020

nl_NL.ISO8859-1
d_t_fmt="%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Y"
wo mei 27 11:38:35 2020

pt_BR.ISO8859-1
d_t_fmt="%a %e %b %Y %H:%M:%S"
Qua 27 Mai 2020 11:38:35

pt_PT.ISO8859-1
d_t_fmt="%a %e %b %H:%M:%S %Y"
Qua 27 Mai 11:38:35 2020


 


 
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Document Information

More support for:
AIX

Component:
Commands->Base system libraries, Desktop->Globalization

Software version:
All Version(s)

Document number:
6217399

Modified date:
27 May 2020

UID

ibm16217399

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