Re: Date doesn't accept "date -s 05270925"

[Jim Meyering]

Otto Wyss <address@hidden> wrote:
| The subject say everything, everytime a "invalid date" is returned. The
| command was performed on a Debian woody system with date version 2.0.11
| and locale set to de_CH.
|
| There seems to be no verbose option which tells how much of the date
| could be interpreted.

What you probably mean is something like this:

  date --set='2001-05-27 09:25'

If you really prefer the MMDDhhmm format, just remove the `-s'.
The texinfo documentation (`info date setting') says this:

  Setting the time
  ----------------

     If given an argument that does not start with `+', `date' sets the
  system clock to the time and date specified by that argument (as
  described below).  You must have appropriate privileges to set the
  system clock.  The `--date' and `--set' options may not be used with
  such an argument.  The `--universal' option may be used with such an
  argument to indicate that the specified time and date are relative to
  Coordinated Universal Time rather than to the local time zone.

     The argument must consist entirely of digits, which have the
  following meaning:

  `MM'
       month

  `DD'
       day within month

  `hh'
       hour

  `mm'
       minute

  `CC'
       first two digits of year (optional)

  `YY'
       last two digits of year (optional)

  `ss'
       second (optional)

     The `--set' option also sets the system clock; see the next section.