> It is, although you may have missed it. Yes I definitely did, thank you. I replied solely to Glenn instead of reply all. My apologies.
> > > > I think this default format string should appear in the man page as > > well. > > It already does (since the man page is generated from the --help output): I meant the default format string as listed in the GNU manual I linked: `'+%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y'`. https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/date-invocation.html#date-invocation MCP On Tue, Oct 12, 2021 at 1:06 PM Eric Blake <ebl...@redhat.com> wrote: > > On Tue, Oct 12, 2021 at 10:20:28AM -0700, Michael Partridge wrote: > > Hello, > > I am reading the date man page for the first time and it seems that a `+` > > must prefix a format string, but this requirement or behavior is not > > documented. > > It is, although you may have missed it. > > $ date --help |head -n1 > Usage: date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT] > > > > > I think this default format string should appear in the man page as > > well. > > It already does (since the man page is generated from the --help output): > > NAME > date - print or set the system date and time > > SYNOPSIS > date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT] > date [-u|--utc|--universal] [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]] > > In both places, the argument is written +FORMAT to make it obvious > that without a leading +, you are instead asking date to parse a > 'MMDDhhmm' argument for setting the system date (likely to fail if not > executed as root). > > That said, if you have a proposed patch to make the existing > documentation clearer, we're open to the idea. > > -- > Eric Blake, Principal Software Engineer > Red Hat, Inc. +1-919-301-3266 > Virtualization: qemu.org | libvirt.org >
