filedate(1) General Commands Manual filedate(1)
NAME
filedate - print the modification times of the specified files
SYNOPSIS
filedate [-h(elp)] [-a(ccess_time)] [-f file_list] [-l(ocale_format)]
[-p(ipe)] [-q(uiet)] [-t(ouch_format)] [-U(TC_time)] [-v(erbose)]
[file...]
DESCRIPTION
filedate prints out the modification times of the specified files.
OPTIONS
-h Print help and quit.
-a Print out file access times instead of modification times.
-f file_list
Read the names of files to be processed from the specified file.
-l Print time stamps in the preferred date and time representation
for the current locale.
-t Print time stamps in a format that is compatible with the -t
option of the touch command.
-p Read the names of files to be processed from stdin.
-q Quiet output. Do not print the filename with program output.
-U Print out UTC times instead of local times.
-v Verbose output. Print the filename with program output.
NOTES
The program defaults to quiet for a single file and verbose for
multiple files. The -f and -p options can be used simultaneously with
filenames specified on the command-line. If neither the -l or -t
option is specified, the program defaults to a "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.NN"
format that can be sorted into chronological order easily and can be
used with the -d option of touch.
Note that this program operates similarly to stat -c '%y'. If you are
trying to write highly portable shell scripts, you might consider using
stat instead.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2004-2026 by Brian Lindholm. This program is free
software; you can use it, redistribute it, and/or modify it under the
terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option) any later
version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
General Public License for more details.
littleutils 2026 Jan 01 filedate(1)
littleutils 1.4.0 - Generated Wed Feb 18 06:57:37 CST 2026