Re: sh-utils 2.0: date fails to convert seconds since epoch to date

[Jim Meyering]

Thanks for the report.
The documentation in the latest test release is better:

  ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/fetish/sh-utils-2.0.15.tar.gz

Per Cederqvist <address@hidden> wrote:
> Using "date +%s" I can get the number of seconds since the epoch.
> Fine.  I now want to convert it back to a date.  The manual states
> that I can do so:
>
>>      To convert such an unwieldy number of seconds back to a more
>>      readable form, use a command like this:
>>
>>           date -d '1970-01-01 946684800 sec' +"%Y-%m-%d %T %z"
>>           2000-01-01 00:00:00 +0000
>
> Reading this, I would expect that
>
>         date; date -d "1970-01-01 `date +%s` sec"
>
> would produce two equal lines (unless I run the commands just as the
> clock ticks).  However, there is a 1-hour difference:
>
> Fri Aug 16 15:34:52 MEST 2002
> Fri Aug 16 14:34:52 MEST 2002

Add `UTC', as in this example, and it should work the way you expect:

  date; date -d "1970-01-01 UTC `date +%s` sec"