time

Formats the current time using

POSIX strftime  tokens.

Summary

• [time locale] Time format string [/time]

Parameter	Description	Default
locale	Format the time according to the named locale.	None
adjust	Temporarily adjust the time for display purposes.	None
gmt	Display time as GMT.	No
hours	Force the adjust parameter value to be treated as a number of hours.	No
sortable	Returns the date in %Y%m%d format.	No
tz	Use the passed timezone to display the time.	None
zerofix	Strips leading zeroes from numbers.	No
interpolate	Parse Interchange tags, included in the body text, before this container tag executes.	No
reparse	Process any Interchange tags found in the text output from this tag.	Yes

Examples

Tag expansion example

All examples on this page assume that today is Monday 01 January 2001.

Perl example

or similarly with positional parameters:

Description

Formats the current time using

POSIX strftime  tokens.  For example:

See the time format tokens section, below, and/or the strftime(3)  UNIX manual page, for information on the recognised tokens.  The tokens are the same as modern UNIX date(1) command arguments.

The tag body defaults to %c, if it is empty.

Time format tokens

Time format tokens are introduced by a "%" character and terminated by a conversion specifier character, as listed in the following table:

Token	Description
%a	The abbreviated weekday name according to the current locale.
%A	The full weekday name according to the current locale.
%b	The abbreviated month name according to the current locale.
%B	The full month name according to the current locale.
%c	The preferred date and time representation for the current locale.
%C	The century number (year/100) as a 2-digit integer.  (SU)
%d	The day of the month as a decimal number (range 01 to 31).
%D	Equivalent to "%m/%d/%y".  (Yecch -- for North Americans only).  Americans should note that "%d/%m/%y" is rather common in other countries, and actually makes more sense.  In an international context, the %D format is ambiguous and should therefore not be used.  (SU)
%e	Like "%d", the day of the month as a decimal number, but a leading zero is replaced by a space.  (SU)
%E	Modifier:  use alternative format, see below.  (SU)
%F	Equivalent to "%Y-%m-%d" (the ISO 8601 date format).  (C99)
%G	The ISO 8601 year with century as a decimal number.  The 4-digit year corresponding to the ISO week number (see "%V").  This has the same format and value as "%y", except that if the ISO week number belongs to the previous or next year, that year is used instead.  (TZ)
%g	Like "%G", but without century.  I.e., with a 2-digit year (00-99).  (TZ)
%h	Equivalent to "%b".  (SU)
%H	The hour as a decimal number using a 24-hour clock (range 00 to 23).
%I	The hour as a decimal number using a 12-hour clock (range 01 to 12).
%j	The day of the year as a decimal number (range 001 to 366).
%k	The hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number (range 0 to 23);  single digits are preceded by a blank.  (See also "%H".) (TZ)
%l	The hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number (range 1 to 12);  single digits are preceded by a blank.  (See also "%I".) (TZ)
%m	The month as a decimal number (range 01 to 12).
%M	The minute as a decimal number (range 00 to 59).
%n	A newline character.  (SU)
%O	Modifier:  use alternative format, see below.  (SU)
%p	Either "AM" or "PM" according to the given time value, or the corresponding strings for the current locale.  Noon is treated as "pm" and midnight as `am'.
%P	Like "%p" but in lowercase:  "am" or "pm" or a corresponding string for the current locale.  (GNU)
%r	The time in "AM" or "PM" notation.  In the POSIX locale this is equivalent to "%I:%M:%S %p".  (SU)
%R	The time in 24-hour notation (%H:%M).  (SU) For a version including the seconds, see "%T", below.
%s	The number of seconds since the Epoch (1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC).  (TZ)
%S	The second as a decimal number (range 00 to 60).  The range is up to 60 to allow for occasional leap seconds.
%t	A tab character.  (SU)
%T	The time in 24-hour notation (%H:%M:%S).  (SU)
%u	The day of the week as a decimal, range 1 to 7, Monday being 1.  See also "%w".  (SU)
%U	The week number of the current year as a decimal number, range 00 to 53, starting with the first Sunday as the first day of week 01.  See also "%V" and "%W".
%V	The ISO 8601:1988 week number of the current year as a decimal number, range 01 to 53, where week 1 is the first week that has at least 4 days in the current year, and with Monday as the first day of the week.  See also "%U" and "%W".  (SU)
%w	The day of the week as a decimal, range 0 to 6, Sunday being 0.  See also "%u".
%W	The week number of the current year as a decimal number, range 00 to 53, starting with the first Monday as the first day of week 01.
%x	The preferred date representation for the current locale without the time.
%X	The preferred time representation for the current locale without the date.
%y	The year as a decimal number without a century (range 00 to 99).
%Y	The year as a decimal number including the century.
%z	The time-zone as hour offset from GMT.  Required to emit RFC 822-conformant dates (using "%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z").  (GNU)
%Z	The time zone or name or abbreviation.
%%	A literal "%" character.

Some time format tokens can be modified by preceding the conversion specifier character by the "E" or "O" modifier to indicate that an alternative format should be used.  If the alternative format or token does not exist for the current locale, the behaviour will be as if the unmodified conversion specification were used.

SU, the Single Unix Specification, mentions %Ec, %EC, %Ex, %EX, %Ey, %EY, %Od, %Oe, %OH, %OI, %Om, %OM, %OS, %Ou, %OU, %OV, %Ow, %OW and %Oy, where the effect of the "O" modifier is to use alternative numeric symbols (roman numerals, for instance), and that of the "E" modifier is to use a locale-dependent alternative representation.

Parameters

locale

Format the time according to the named locale, assuming that locale is available on your operating system.  For example, the following:

adjust

If you wish to temporarily adjust the time for display purposes, you can pass an adjust parameter with the number of hours (plus or minus).

If the number ends in zero and has 3 digits or more, it is assumed that the number is in timezone format (i.e +500) the local time or from GMT:

If you want to force the number to be just a number of hours then add the "hours" parameter:

If adjust is an Interchange time duration with a suffix of sec, min, hrs, days, or weeks, then that will be used:

Note The timezone will not be changed in line with the selected time adjustment.  You should either use a format that doesn't display the timezone, use the "tz" parameter or display the timezone string yourself.

Global Interchange timezone setup

You can adjust time globally for an Interchange installation by setting the TZ environment variable.  On many systems, this can be done as follows:

On most modern UNIX systems, the above will cause all dates and times to be adjusted and displayed using the PST timezone.

gmt

If you want to display time as GMT/UTC then use this parameter, as follows:

Note Although the time itself will be correct, the timezone will not be set to GMT/UTC.  You should use the "tz" parameter if you want to set the timezone.

hours

Forces the adjust parameter value to be treated as a number of hours.  For example:

sortable

Overrides the tag body with %Y%m%d so that a sortable date value will be generated.

tz

Use the passed timezone to display the time.  Will adjust for hours difference.  For example:

The first alphabetical string, in the timezone specification, is the timezone name when not in daylight savings time, the digit is the number of hours displacement from GMT/UTC and the second alphabetical string is the timezone name when in daylight savings time.

On modern UNIX-based systems, you can also pass POSIX timezone names as follows:

The POSIX timezone names are considered to be easier to understand and more accurate than the older timezone specifications, described above.

Note The "tz" parameter may not work at all on non-UNIX and non-POSIX operating systems.  If this is a problem then upgrade to a decent operating system.

zerofix

Strips leading zeros from numbers

Category:  Interchange tags

Last modified by: Kevin Walsh Modification date: Thursday 15 February 2007 at 10:55 PM (EST)