Re: GNU Date?

[Bob Proulx]

> I took over administration of a server and one of the users on that system
> use gdate in his scripts.  I am settinng up a new server and I will have to
> migrate everything to this new server.  The previous administrator did not
> leave any src files for me to recompile gdate on my new server, so I am out
> searching for this package. 

Most GNU software uses autoconf for portability and this is frequently
used to allow people building software to rename the program.

configure --help:
[...]
Program names:
  --program-prefix=PREFIX            prepend PREFIX to installed program names
  --program-suffix=SUFFIX            append SUFFIX to installed program names
  --program-transform-name=PROGRAM   run sed PROGRAM on installed program names

This might be desired if you were adding GNU software to a commercial
OS and did not want to overwrite the original vendor's files.  GNU
software will commonly be installed with a 'g' prefix.  Therefore
gdate would really be the date command.  [I never use the prefix
myself and avoid it.  I recommend installing GNU software on
commercial OS's in a different directory.  My personal choice is
/opt/local, keeping /usr/local for truly local customizations.]

Most GNU software you can get version and package information from
with the --version option.  With  this you will find that date is part
of the sh-utils package.

The latest test release is available at:

  ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/fetish/textutils-2.0.11.tar.gz
  ftp://freefriends.org/gnu/fetish/textutils-2.0.11.tar.gz

Hope that helps

Bob