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<refentry id="systemd.time">
<refentryinfo>
<title>systemd.time</title>
<productname>systemd</productname>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<contrib>Developer</contrib>
<firstname>Lennart</firstname>
<surname>Poettering</surname>
<email>lennart@poettering.net</email>
</author>
</authorgroup>
</refentryinfo>
<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>systemd.time</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>7</manvolnum>
</refmeta>
<refnamediv>
<refname>systemd.time</refname>
<refpurpose>Time and date specifications</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>
<refsect1>
<title>Description</title>
<para>In systemd, timestamps, time spans, and calendar events are
displayed and may be specified in closely related syntaxes.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>Displaying Time Spans</title>
<para>Time spans refer to time durations. On display, systemd will
present time spans as a space-separated series of time values each
suffixed by a time unit.</para>
<programlisting>2h 30min</programlisting>
<para>All specified time values are meant to be added up. The
above hence refers to 150 minutes.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>Parsing Time Spans</title>
<para>When parsing, systemd will accept the same time span syntax.
Separating spaces may be omitted. The following time units are
understood:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>usec, us</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>msec, ms</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>seconds, second, sec, s</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>minutes, minute, min, m</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>hours, hour, hr, h</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>days, day, d</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>weeks, week, w</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>months, month, M (defined as 30.44 days)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>years, year, y (define as 365.25 days)</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>If no time unit is specified, generally seconds are assumed,
but some exceptions exist and are marked as such. In a few cases
<literal>ns</literal>, <literal>nsec</literal> is accepted too,
where the granularity of the time span allows for this.</para>
<para>Examples for valid time span specifications:</para>
<programlisting>2 h
2hours
48hr
1y 12month
55s500ms
300ms20s 5day</programlisting>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>Displaying Timestamps</title>
<para>Timestamps refer to specific, unique points in time. On
display, systemd will format these in the local timezone as
follows:</para>
<programlisting>Fri 2012-11-23 23:02:15 CET</programlisting>
<para>The weekday is printed according to the locale choice of the
user.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>Parsing Timestamps</title>
<para>When parsing, systemd will accept a similar syntax, but
expects no timezone specification, unless it is given as the
literal string "UTC". In this case, the time is considered in UTC,
otherwise in the local timezone. The weekday specification is
optional, but when the weekday is specified, it must either be in
the abbreviated (<literal>Wed</literal>) or non-abbreviated
(<literal>Wednesday</literal>) English language form (case does
not matter), and is not subject to the locale choice of the user.
Either the date, or the time part may be omitted, in which case
the current date or 00:00:00, respectively, is assumed. The seconds
component of the time may also be omitted, in which case ":00" is
assumed. Year numbers may be specified in full or may be
abbreviated (omitting the century).</para>
<para>A timestamp is considered invalid if a weekday is specified
and the date does not actually match the specified day of the
week.</para>
<para>When parsing, systemd will also accept a few special
placeholders instead of timestamps: <literal>now</literal> may be
used to refer to the current time (or of the invocation of the
command that is currently executed). <literal>today</literal>,
<literal>yesterday</literal>, and <literal>tomorrow</literal> refer to
00:00:00 of the current day, the day before, or the next day,
respectively.</para>
<para>When parsing, systemd will also accept relative time
specifications. A time span (see above) that is prefixed with
<literal>+</literal> is evaluated to the current time plus the
specified time span. Correspondingly, a time span that is prefixed
with <literal>-</literal> is evaluated to the current time minus
the specified time span. Instead of prefixing the time span with
<literal>+</literal> or <literal>-</literal>, it may also be
suffixed with a space and the word <literal>left</literal> or
<literal>ago</literal>.</para>
<para>Finally, a timespan prefixed with <literal>@</literal> is
evaluated relative to the UNIX time epoch 1st Jan, 1970,
00:00.</para>
<para>Examples for valid timestamps and their normalized form
(assuming the current time was 2012-11-23 18:15:22 and the timezone
was UTC+8, for example TZ=Asia/Shanghai):</para>
<programlisting>Fri 2012-11-23 11:12:13 → Fri 2012-11-23 11:12:13
2012-11-23 11:12:13 → Fri 2012-11-23 11:12:13
2012-11-23 11:12:13 UTC → Fri 2012-11-23 19:12:13
2012-11-23 → Fri 2012-11-23 00:00:00
12-11-23 → Fri 2012-11-23 00:00:00
11:12:13 → Fri 2012-11-23 11:12:13
11:12:13.9900009 → Fri 2012-11-23 11:12:13
format_timestamp_us: Fri 2012-11-23 11:12:13.990000
11:12 → Fri 2012-11-23 11:12:00
now → Fri 2012-11-23 18:15:22
today → Fri 2012-11-23 00:00:00
today UTC → Fri 2012-11-23 16:00:00
yesterday → Fri 2012-11-22 00:00:00
tomorrow → Fri 2012-11-24 00:00:00
+3h30min → Fri 2012-11-23 21:45:22
+3h30min UTC → -EINVAL
-5s → Fri 2012-11-23 18:15:17
11min ago → Fri 2012-11-23 18:04:22
11min ago UTC → -EINVAL
@1395716396 → Tue 2014-03-25 03:59:56</programlisting>
<para>Note that timestamps printed by systemd will not be parsed
correctly by systemd, as the timezone specification is not
accepted, and printing timestamps is subject to locale settings
for the weekday, while parsing only accepts English weekday
names.</para>
<para>In some cases, systemd will display a relative timestamp
(relative to the current time, or the time of invocation of the
command) instead or in addition to an absolute timestamp as
described above. A relative timestamp is formatted as
follows:</para>
<para>2 months 5 days ago</para>
<para>Note that any relative timestamp will also parse correctly
where a timestamp is expected. (see above)</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>Calendar Events</title>
<para>Calendar events may be used to refer to one or more points
in time in a single expression. They form a superset of the
absolute timestamps explained above:</para>
<programlisting>Thu,Fri 2012-*-1,5 11:12:13</programlisting>
<para>The above refers to 11:12:13 of the first or fifth day of
any month of the year 2012, but only if that day is a Thursday or
Friday.</para>
<para>The weekday specification is optional. If specified, it
should consist of one or more English language weekday names,
either in the abbreviated (Wed) or non-abbreviated (Wednesday)
form (case does not matter), separated by commas. Specifying two
weekdays separated by <literal>..</literal> refers to a range of
continuous weekdays. <literal>,</literal> and <literal>..</literal>
may be combined freely.</para>
<para>In the date and time specifications, any component may be
specified as <literal>*</literal> in which case any value will
match. Alternatively, each component can be specified as a list of
values separated by commas. Values may also be suffixed with
<literal>/</literal> and a repetition value, which indicates that
the value itself and the value plus all multiples of the repetition value
are matched. Each component may also contain a range of values
separated by <literal>..</literal>.</para>
<para>The seconds component may contain decimal fractions both in
the value and the repetition. All fractions are rounded to 6
decimal places.</para>
<para>Either time or date specification may be omitted, in which
case the current day and 00:00:00 is implied, respectively. If the
second component is not specified, <literal>:00</literal> is
assumed.</para>
<para>A timezone specification is not expected, unless it is given
as the literal string "UTC", similarly to timestamps.</para>
<para>The special expressions
<literal>minutely</literal>,
<literal>hourly</literal>, <literal>daily</literal>,
<literal>monthly</literal>, <literal>weekly</literal>,
<literal>yearly</literal>,
<literal>quarterly</literal>,
<literal>semiannually</literal> may be used as
calendar events which refer to
<literal>*-*-* *:*:00</literal>,
<literal>*-*-* *:00:00</literal>,
<literal>*-*-* 00:00:00</literal>,
<literal>*-*-01 00:00:00</literal>,
<literal>Mon *-*-* 00:00:00</literal>,
<literal>*-01-01 00:00:00</literal>,
<literal>*-01,04,07,10-01 00:00:00</literal> and
<literal>*-01,07-01 00:00:00</literal>, respectively.
</para>
<para>Examples for valid timestamps and their
normalized form:</para>
<programlisting> Sat,Thu,Mon..Wed,Sat..Sun → Mon..Thu,Sat,Sun *-*-* 00:00:00
Mon,Sun 12-*-* 2,1:23 → Mon,Sun 2012-*-* 01,02:23:00
Wed *-1 → Wed *-*-01 00:00:00
Wed..Wed,Wed *-1 → Wed *-*-01 00:00:00
Wed, 17:48 → Wed *-*-* 17:48:00
Wed..Sat,Tue 12-10-15 1:2:3 → Tue..Sat 2012-10-15 01:02:03
*-*-7 0:0:0 → *-*-07 00:00:00
10-15 → *-10-15 00:00:00
monday *-12-* 17:00 → Mon *-12-* 17:00:00
Mon,Fri *-*-3,1,2 *:30:45 → Mon,Fri *-*-01,02,03 *:30:45
12,14,13,12:20,10,30 → *-*-* 12,13,14:10,20,30:00
12..14:10,20,30 → *-*-* 12,13,14:10,20,30:00
mon,fri *-1/2-1,3 *:30:45 → Mon,Fri *-01/2-01,03 *:30:45
03-05 08:05:40 → *-03-05 08:05:40
08:05:40 → *-*-* 08:05:40
05:40 → *-*-* 05:40:00
Sat,Sun 12-05 08:05:40 → Sat,Sun *-12-05 08:05:40
Sat,Sun 08:05:40 → Sat,Sun *-*-* 08:05:40
2003-03-05 05:40 → 2003-03-05 05:40:00
05:40:23.4200004/3.1700005 → 05:40:23.420000/3.170001
2003-02..04-05 → 2003-02,03,04-05 00:00:00
2003-03-05 05:40 UTC → 2003-03-05 05:40:00 UTC
2003-03-05 → 2003-03-05 00:00:00
03-05 → *-03-05 00:00:00
hourly → *-*-* *:00:00
daily → *-*-* 00:00:00
daily UTC → *-*-* 00:00:00 UTC
monthly → *-*-01 00:00:00
weekly → Mon *-*-* 00:00:00
yearly → *-01-01 00:00:00
annually → *-01-01 00:00:00
*:2/3 → *-*-* *:02/3:00</programlisting>
<para>Calendar events are used by timer units, see
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.timer</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
for details.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>See Also</title>
<para>
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>journalctl</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.timer</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.unit</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.directives</refentrytitle><manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry>
</para>
</refsect1>
</refentry>