Find A Future Date From The Shell

I've been using 'Time Travel' for years which has a GUI. It is found here:[download.cnet.com]

@badlocation:

Quick question, what shell are you using?

Am I the only person who read the title and knew exactly what it was about?

Now if you really want to find a date (the person kind) from the shell, just learn how to use Lynx.

Er, perhaps I'm missing something:
Titus: uname -v
Darwin Kernel Version 9.6.0: Mon Nov 24 17:37:00 PST 2008; root:xnu-1228.9.59~1/RELEASE_I386
Titus: date -d "3 weeks"
usage: date [-jnu] [-d dst] [-r seconds] [-t west] [-v[+|-]val[ymwdHMS]] ...
[-f fmt date | [[[[[cc]yy]mm]dd]HH]MM[.ss]] [+format]
Titus:

The -d option is to do with daylight savings time...

daqman

I just read Find a Date from the Shell and I looked at the picture, then looked a little better and was disappointed. Stop making misleading titles.

If you are using Mac OS X, the -d parameter wont work the way you've described it, see 'man date'

This is how your examples should look for Mac OS X

plus 3 weeks: date -v +3w
minus 3 weeks: date -v -3w
plus 3 weeks and 2 days: date -v +3w -v +2d

badlocation

@Ortzinator:
LOL when i was looking at the title of this post on my RSS feeds i was totally like "wait. WHAT? is this like.. online dating gone nuts or something??"

huge misconception right there :( i'm a bit disappointed.
not that this isn't cool either.. haha

Angelina Huang

I know this thread isn't officially about linux, but I need some advice. Any Samsung NC10 users try out the new Ubuntu release, I have wanted to install it, but have not gotten a definitive answer of what works out of the box. If anybody could tell me that would be awesome. Thank you

takemetoyourtoaster

Now if only Linux could get me a real date. :(

Ortzinator

IMO Linux can never cease to amaze any geek!

callrecall911

Thank you so much! It's my birthday and I was thinking.. "hmm, I wonder what week day it will be on next year. So I just type 'date -d "1 year"' and bam! I find it it's a Wednesday :D

BrianB

@Duane:

[20:24:29][~]$ echo -e "$SHELL\n$BASH_VERSION"
/bin/bash
3.2.17(1)-release

badlocation

I don't think it can do real date calculations, though, between two arbitrary dates. It can only do calculations relative to the current time.

What I really want is a combination of Google Calculator/units/date all in one app/screenlet/deskbar, that runs on your own computer (doesn't need to be online) and lets you type in any freeform calculation involving dates, times, and units and get the answer:

"40 thousand miles / (two weeks ago - 1995-09-03)" should give "0.14985 m/s"

Why doesn't this exist yet?!

@Duane: Yea every time I fire up lynx the girls come running! It's a real panty-dropper.

@badlocation: My mistake! I didn't realize the argument was different on a Mac.

why don't you just try the live usb and see for yourself? download wubi and the version you want (i recommend netbook remix) http://releases.ubuntu.com/jaunty/

ShridulaEleusis

Also try:
cal
cal -3
cal -y

yitzle

@Beall49: date -d '+21 days' works

yitzle

@Dave Newton:I think more people would probably have excel than this thingy, but I see you're point.

Beall49

@Beall49: Not easier if you don't have Excel, and not easier if you don't want to start up an entire spreadsheet to do a trivial date calculation.

Dave Newton

I think using Excel would be a little easier.

'For three weeks in the future....
=Now()+21

Beall49

Find a date? I tried the grocery store first - got to choose between "pitted" and "unpitted".

BrianW62

@Ortzinator: I tried to "find date" but my computer refused. Then I hit upon the brilliant idea of hunting for the date myself. So I asked "whereis date" and it told me the location - the date was hiding in /bin.

PS: I also did "whereis osama" and it said "/bin/laden". I guess I'll finish that job too. Happy hunting!

huskie

dude, just use google calendar

Cedric Semiean

@takemetoyourtoaster: I agree with ShridulaEleusis. You need to download the live cd and try it. I've been using Ubuntu for nearly four years, and I love it. Everything has worked out of the box for me with my last two laptops. I just searched ubuntuforums.org for your model and I found no mention of your computer, which is good news because it means that no one is having major problems with it compatibility-wise. Give the Jaunty live CD a shot.

acrididae

good one.

Chinni Krishna

@daqman: RTFM

It's been years since I got to use that. ;)

TheFu

Any one know how to get the current week number from the shell?

sebf

POEE members can use something like:
$ ddate `date +"%d %m %y" -d "1 month"`
Prickle-Prickle, Confusion 3, 1175 YOLD

@TheFu: Typo:
`date "+%W"` is correct.

TheFu

@sebf: RTFG.
[www.google.com] shows this as the first search result:
`date "+%W`

I suspect RTFM also holds for this solution.

Editors: Seems we need a tutorial on using `man`?

TheFu

@yitzle: Rockin'!!! I did not know these tricks. Thanks! Proof that old dogs can learn new tricks.

TheFu

@Beall49: Perhaps in your world, that is true. Not in mine.

I have 3 shell windows open now and zero spreadsheets.
Excel doesn't run on this VM, so I'd have to switch to a different computer, start Windows, start Excel ... just for a future date calc?

Honestly, if it wasn't for a script, I'd just use
$ cal mm yyyy
or
$ cal <--- for the current month
to see the monthly calendar. If I need an entire year
$ cal yyyy
works.

All of these are easier than anything other than swapping to an already running calendar app, assuming it is already running. AND copy/paste into a document works much better with `cal` than the GUI apps I've seen.

TheFu

@fadecomic: That should've said "often has", not "has" before someone jumps on that.

@TheFu: And yet, it's still rude, uninformative, and vulgar. The main problem with "RTFM" is that the person asking for help already has. However, the manual was written by a developer with little perspective who doesn't quite realize that what's intuitively obvious to him might not be to even a very computer savvy person who didn't write the program.

GNU date, you never cease to amaze.

It seems clear this only works for Linux, and Mac OS X isn't Linux. Even worse, it looks like nobody ever considers testing on multiple versions; instead they just assume because it works for them it will work for everyone.

Lifehacker shouldn't be posting these unless and until they've actually tested them, and specify which versions of the particular operating system they've tested them on.

Mulder

Using Powershell in Windows, you can do the same thing like this:

(Get-Date).AddDays(21) # For 3 weeks into the future

or

(Get-Date).AddDays(-21) # For 3 weeks ago

The same applies for years, months, hours, minutes and seconds. Unfortunately, they don't have an AddWeeks() function.

All of the Add*() functions can be chained to add all of them, too.

DarkestOfNights

I created a portuguese version of this post, on Geek Analógico, my (new) blog. Whoever can read Portuguese please visit:

[geekanalogico.co.cc]

If you're in MS PowerShell, you can get the same with:

(Get-Date).AddDays(21)

You can also add Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Months and Years.

I still prefer the Linux terminal, though....

DarkestOfNights

I realize that is mostly for bash shell...But there are other shells. In powershell its: PS>([DateTime]::now).adddays(21) Tuesday, May 19, 2009 10:48:10 PM There is not method for week but you could easly make one.

UisteanArgeius

@endolith:

Dude, of course it exists:

(units "40 thousand miles" "m" | awk '/\*/ { print $2 }' ; expr `date -d "-14 days" '+%s' ` - `date -d "1995-09-03" '+%s'`; echo 10k/p ) | dc

Type that on one line. Result (varies based on time run - since "two weeks ago" changes):
.1498110633

kvenlander

@badlocation: THANK YOU

I've been using the timeanddate.com's date calculator for a few years now.
it lets you add or subtract from a certain date by seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, or years; calculate duration between two dates.

There's even a birthday calculator that gives you useless info like when you will be 1 billion seconds years old!

[www.timeanddate.com]

[www.timeanddate.com]

chuckdaddy

that's not really a surprise don't you think? most people have their birthday every year and there's always just one week day inbetween (except for leap years) did i miss some sarcasm?

LauraNemesis

@sebf: For weeks starting on Sunday: "date +%U"
For weeks starting on Monday: "date +%W"
For an ISO week number starting on Monday: "date +%V"

The U, W, and V are capitols.

@fadecomic: If the developer doesn't write it in the FM, STFW

l33tmyst

Using windows? (blah, I know) Double click your clock, wow a calender. April 29th 2012 is a Sunday, 2051 it's a Saturday.

GuntherStheno

@Duane:
Text from my RSS reader:
Find a Future Date from the Shell [Terminal Tip]

Seemed simple to me, plus I'm in my shell a lot.