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bashunixdate

Forcing "date" to use a locale other than the machine default

Is there a way to force the *nix command "date" to output in a specific format independent of the local? For example, if I call "date -u" today, on a US machine I get:

Mon Oct 15 13:15:29 UTC 2012

but on a German machine I get:

Mo 15. Okt 13:15:31 UTC 2012
Solution

  • Sure, you can always specify the format yourself:

    date +%a, %b %d

    or you can use a temporary environmental variable:

    :~$ LC_ALL=de_DE.utf8 date
Mo 15. Okt 15:34:11 CEST 2012
:~$ date
Mon Oct 15 15:33:24 CEST 2012

    As you see, only the first command is run with the German locale.