How can I convert a date with a named month to a unix timestamp with only Busybox tools?

up vote
7
down vote

favorite

I'm working in an environment where I pretty much only have access to busybox tools, and trying to convert a date in the format Mon Jan 1 23:59:59 2018 GMT to a unix timestamp, in a shell script. I can't change the format of the input time I am parsing. It seems that busybox date can not understand this date format, or any other format with a named month. I have a really ugly script that can do it, but does anyone know of anything nicer?

Edit: the date -D option doesn't work for me, I get

date: invalid option -- 'D' 
BusyBox v1.24.1 (2018-01-11 16:07:45 PST) multi-call binary. 

Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]`

edited Feb 9 at 21:50

asked Feb 9 at 18:22

Nic

1385

1

Possible duplicate of BusyBox Date Command Set Time with UNIX Timestamp
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:34

1

See also: unix.stackexchange.com/a/296073/117549
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:35

1

@JeffSchaller No, the BusyBox Date Command Set Time with UNIX Timestamp is about setting the computer time, it does not use the -d option for a date string.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 18:50

Thanks, @isaac; I'll retract my vote to avoid misleading others.
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:56

add a commentÂ |Â

up vote
7
down vote

favorite

Edit: the date -D option doesn't work for me, I get

date: invalid option -- 'D' 
BusyBox v1.24.1 (2018-01-11 16:07:45 PST) multi-call binary. 

Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]`

edited Feb 9 at 21:50

asked Feb 9 at 18:22

Nic

1385

1

Possible duplicate of BusyBox Date Command Set Time with UNIX Timestamp
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:34

1

See also: unix.stackexchange.com/a/296073/117549
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:35

1

@JeffSchaller No, the BusyBox Date Command Set Time with UNIX Timestamp is about setting the computer time, it does not use the -d option for a date string.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 18:50

Thanks, @isaac; I'll retract my vote to avoid misleading others.
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:56

add a commentÂ |Â

up vote
7
down vote

favorite

Edit: the date -D option doesn't work for me, I get

date: invalid option -- 'D' 
BusyBox v1.24.1 (2018-01-11 16:07:45 PST) multi-call binary. 

Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]`

edited Feb 9 at 21:50

asked Feb 9 at 18:22

Nic

1385

Edit: the date -D option doesn't work for me, I get

date: invalid option -- 'D' 
BusyBox v1.24.1 (2018-01-11 16:07:45 PST) multi-call binary. 

Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]`

edited Feb 9 at 21:50

asked Feb 9 at 18:22

Nic

1385

edited Feb 9 at 21:50

asked Feb 9 at 18:22

Nic

1385

asked Feb 9 at 18:22

Nic

1385

asked Feb 9 at 18:22

Nic

1385

1

Possible duplicate of BusyBox Date Command Set Time with UNIX Timestamp
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:34

1

See also: unix.stackexchange.com/a/296073/117549
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:35

1

@JeffSchaller No, the BusyBox Date Command Set Time with UNIX Timestamp is about setting the computer time, it does not use the -d option for a date string.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 18:50

Thanks, @isaac; I'll retract my vote to avoid misleading others.
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:56

add a commentÂ |Â

1

Possible duplicate of BusyBox Date Command Set Time with UNIX Timestamp
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:34

1

See also: unix.stackexchange.com/a/296073/117549
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:35

1

@JeffSchaller No, the BusyBox Date Command Set Time with UNIX Timestamp is about setting the computer time, it does not use the -d option for a date string.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 18:50

Thanks, @isaac; I'll retract my vote to avoid misleading others.
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:56

Possible duplicate of BusyBox Date Command Set Time with UNIX Timestamp
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:34

See also: unix.stackexchange.com/a/296073/117549
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:35

@JeffSchaller No, the BusyBox Date Command Set Time with UNIX Timestamp is about setting the computer time, it does not use the -d option for a date string.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 18:50

Thanks, @isaac; I'll retract my vote to avoid misleading others.
â€“Â Jeff Schaller
Feb 9 at 18:56

add a commentÂ |Â

1 Answer
1

active

oldest

votes

up vote
7
down vote

accepted

The busybox date² is fully capable of parsing the date in the given string with some help¹ (except for the GMT time zone).

$ gdate='Mon Jan 1 23:59:59 2018 GMT'
$ TZ=GMT0 busybox date -d "$gdate" -D '%a %b %d %T %Y %Z'
Mon Jan 1 23:59:59 GMT 2018

The help is given with the -D option: a description of the source format.

To get a UNIX timestamp, just add the output format expected +'%s':

$ TZ=GMT0 busybox date -d "$gdate" -D '%a %b %d %T %Y %Z' +'%s'
1514851199

¹

The busybox date has most of the GNU date command's capabilities and one that the GNU date command doesn't: the -D option. Get the busybox help as follows:

$ busybox date --help

BusyBox v1.27.2 (Debian 1:1.27.2-2) multi-call binary.

Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]

Display time (using +FMT), or set time

 [-s,--set] TIME Set time to TIME
 -u,--utc Work in UTC (don't convert to local time)
 -R,--rfc-2822 Output RFC-2822 compliant date string
 -I[SPEC] Output ISO-8601 compliant date string
 SPEC='date' (default) for date only,
 'hours', 'minutes', or 'seconds' for date and
 time to the indicated precision
 -r,--reference FILE Display last modification time of FILE
 -d,--date TIME Display TIME, not 'now'
 -D FMT Use FMT for -d TIME conversion

Note the -D FMT option.

²

Note that you may be able to call busybox date in two ways:

$ busybox date

Or, if a link to busybox with the name date has been installed in the correct PATH directory:

$ date

To verify, just ask for --version or --help to find out which date you have installed.

With GNU date:

$ date --version
date (GNU coreutils) 8.28

Or (busybox date):

$ date --help
BusyBox v1.27.2 (Debian 1:1.27.2-2) multi-call binary.
Ã¢Â€Â¦
Ã¢Â€Â¦

edited Feb 10 at 8:27

JdeBP

28.4k459133

answered Feb 9 at 18:45

Isaac

6,6381734

I guess I must have a different busybox version than you're using here, all I get with your example is date: invalid option -- 'D' BusyBox v1.24.1 (2018-01-11 16:07:45 PST) multi-call binary. Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]. It's a good answer though, I'll probably accept it if I don't get anything that will work for me here.
â€“Â Nic
Feb 9 at 21:39

Actually I'm not sure how that works at all... from the documentation here busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html there is a set of recognized TIME formats, none of which include a named month
â€“Â Nic
Feb 9 at 21:46

@Nic The version 1.24.0 is from January-2017. Strange: I downloaded that version (busybox-i686) from that link and it has the -D FMT option. Also (at the same link) you can download busybox 1.27, it is just of size 900k Byte.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 21:57

@Nic On re-reading the documentation on the page you link to it is clear that the last option is -D FMT Use FMT for -d TIME conversion. You should be able to see it.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 22:05

I see it there, and it works on my host machine, but unfortunately just doesn't work on the yocto image I'm working with
â€“Â Nic
Feb 13 at 22:38

add a commentÂ |Â

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Name

1 Answer
1

active

oldest

votes

1 Answer
1

active

oldest

votes

up vote
7
down vote

accepted

The busybox date² is fully capable of parsing the date in the given string with some help¹ (except for the GMT time zone).

$ gdate='Mon Jan 1 23:59:59 2018 GMT'
$ TZ=GMT0 busybox date -d "$gdate" -D '%a %b %d %T %Y %Z'
Mon Jan 1 23:59:59 GMT 2018

The help is given with the -D option: a description of the source format.

To get a UNIX timestamp, just add the output format expected +'%s':

$ TZ=GMT0 busybox date -d "$gdate" -D '%a %b %d %T %Y %Z' +'%s'
1514851199

¹

The busybox date has most of the GNU date command's capabilities and one that the GNU date command doesn't: the -D option. Get the busybox help as follows:

$ busybox date --help

BusyBox v1.27.2 (Debian 1:1.27.2-2) multi-call binary.

Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]

Display time (using +FMT), or set time

 [-s,--set] TIME Set time to TIME
 -u,--utc Work in UTC (don't convert to local time)
 -R,--rfc-2822 Output RFC-2822 compliant date string
 -I[SPEC] Output ISO-8601 compliant date string
 SPEC='date' (default) for date only,
 'hours', 'minutes', or 'seconds' for date and
 time to the indicated precision
 -r,--reference FILE Display last modification time of FILE
 -d,--date TIME Display TIME, not 'now'
 -D FMT Use FMT for -d TIME conversion

Note the -D FMT option.

²

Note that you may be able to call busybox date in two ways:

$ busybox date

Or, if a link to busybox with the name date has been installed in the correct PATH directory:

$ date

To verify, just ask for --version or --help to find out which date you have installed.

With GNU date:

$ date --version
date (GNU coreutils) 8.28

Or (busybox date):

$ date --help
BusyBox v1.27.2 (Debian 1:1.27.2-2) multi-call binary.
Ã¢Â€Â¦
Ã¢Â€Â¦

edited Feb 10 at 8:27

JdeBP

28.4k459133

answered Feb 9 at 18:45

Isaac

6,6381734

I guess I must have a different busybox version than you're using here, all I get with your example is date: invalid option -- 'D' BusyBox v1.24.1 (2018-01-11 16:07:45 PST) multi-call binary. Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]. It's a good answer though, I'll probably accept it if I don't get anything that will work for me here.
â€“Â Nic
Feb 9 at 21:39

Actually I'm not sure how that works at all... from the documentation here busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html there is a set of recognized TIME formats, none of which include a named month
â€“Â Nic
Feb 9 at 21:46

@Nic The version 1.24.0 is from January-2017. Strange: I downloaded that version (busybox-i686) from that link and it has the -D FMT option. Also (at the same link) you can download busybox 1.27, it is just of size 900k Byte.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 21:57

@Nic On re-reading the documentation on the page you link to it is clear that the last option is -D FMT Use FMT for -d TIME conversion. You should be able to see it.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 22:05

I see it there, and it works on my host machine, but unfortunately just doesn't work on the yocto image I'm working with
â€“Â Nic
Feb 13 at 22:38

add a commentÂ |Â

up vote
7
down vote

accepted

The busybox date² is fully capable of parsing the date in the given string with some help¹ (except for the GMT time zone).

$ gdate='Mon Jan 1 23:59:59 2018 GMT'
$ TZ=GMT0 busybox date -d "$gdate" -D '%a %b %d %T %Y %Z'
Mon Jan 1 23:59:59 GMT 2018

The help is given with the -D option: a description of the source format.

To get a UNIX timestamp, just add the output format expected +'%s':

$ TZ=GMT0 busybox date -d "$gdate" -D '%a %b %d %T %Y %Z' +'%s'
1514851199

¹

The busybox date has most of the GNU date command's capabilities and one that the GNU date command doesn't: the -D option. Get the busybox help as follows:

$ busybox date --help

BusyBox v1.27.2 (Debian 1:1.27.2-2) multi-call binary.

Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]

Display time (using +FMT), or set time

 [-s,--set] TIME Set time to TIME
 -u,--utc Work in UTC (don't convert to local time)
 -R,--rfc-2822 Output RFC-2822 compliant date string
 -I[SPEC] Output ISO-8601 compliant date string
 SPEC='date' (default) for date only,
 'hours', 'minutes', or 'seconds' for date and
 time to the indicated precision
 -r,--reference FILE Display last modification time of FILE
 -d,--date TIME Display TIME, not 'now'
 -D FMT Use FMT for -d TIME conversion

Note the -D FMT option.

²

Note that you may be able to call busybox date in two ways:

$ busybox date

Or, if a link to busybox with the name date has been installed in the correct PATH directory:

$ date

To verify, just ask for --version or --help to find out which date you have installed.

With GNU date:

$ date --version
date (GNU coreutils) 8.28

Or (busybox date):

$ date --help
BusyBox v1.27.2 (Debian 1:1.27.2-2) multi-call binary.
Ã¢Â€Â¦
Ã¢Â€Â¦

edited Feb 10 at 8:27

JdeBP

28.4k459133

answered Feb 9 at 18:45

Isaac

6,6381734

I guess I must have a different busybox version than you're using here, all I get with your example is date: invalid option -- 'D' BusyBox v1.24.1 (2018-01-11 16:07:45 PST) multi-call binary. Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]. It's a good answer though, I'll probably accept it if I don't get anything that will work for me here.
â€“Â Nic
Feb 9 at 21:39

Actually I'm not sure how that works at all... from the documentation here busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html there is a set of recognized TIME formats, none of which include a named month
â€“Â Nic
Feb 9 at 21:46

@Nic The version 1.24.0 is from January-2017. Strange: I downloaded that version (busybox-i686) from that link and it has the -D FMT option. Also (at the same link) you can download busybox 1.27, it is just of size 900k Byte.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 21:57

@Nic On re-reading the documentation on the page you link to it is clear that the last option is -D FMT Use FMT for -d TIME conversion. You should be able to see it.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 22:05

I see it there, and it works on my host machine, but unfortunately just doesn't work on the yocto image I'm working with
â€“Â Nic
Feb 13 at 22:38

add a commentÂ |Â

up vote
7
down vote

accepted

The busybox date² is fully capable of parsing the date in the given string with some help¹ (except for the GMT time zone).

$ gdate='Mon Jan 1 23:59:59 2018 GMT'
$ TZ=GMT0 busybox date -d "$gdate" -D '%a %b %d %T %Y %Z'
Mon Jan 1 23:59:59 GMT 2018

The help is given with the -D option: a description of the source format.

To get a UNIX timestamp, just add the output format expected +'%s':

$ TZ=GMT0 busybox date -d "$gdate" -D '%a %b %d %T %Y %Z' +'%s'
1514851199

¹

The busybox date has most of the GNU date command's capabilities and one that the GNU date command doesn't: the -D option. Get the busybox help as follows:

$ busybox date --help

BusyBox v1.27.2 (Debian 1:1.27.2-2) multi-call binary.

Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]

Display time (using +FMT), or set time

 [-s,--set] TIME Set time to TIME
 -u,--utc Work in UTC (don't convert to local time)
 -R,--rfc-2822 Output RFC-2822 compliant date string
 -I[SPEC] Output ISO-8601 compliant date string
 SPEC='date' (default) for date only,
 'hours', 'minutes', or 'seconds' for date and
 time to the indicated precision
 -r,--reference FILE Display last modification time of FILE
 -d,--date TIME Display TIME, not 'now'
 -D FMT Use FMT for -d TIME conversion

Note the -D FMT option.

²

Note that you may be able to call busybox date in two ways:

$ busybox date

Or, if a link to busybox with the name date has been installed in the correct PATH directory:

$ date

To verify, just ask for --version or --help to find out which date you have installed.

With GNU date:

$ date --version
date (GNU coreutils) 8.28

Or (busybox date):

$ date --help
BusyBox v1.27.2 (Debian 1:1.27.2-2) multi-call binary.
Ã¢Â€Â¦
Ã¢Â€Â¦

edited Feb 10 at 8:27

JdeBP

28.4k459133

answered Feb 9 at 18:45

Isaac

6,6381734

The busybox date² is fully capable of parsing the date in the given string with some help¹ (except for the GMT time zone).

$ gdate='Mon Jan 1 23:59:59 2018 GMT'
$ TZ=GMT0 busybox date -d "$gdate" -D '%a %b %d %T %Y %Z'
Mon Jan 1 23:59:59 GMT 2018

The help is given with the -D option: a description of the source format.

To get a UNIX timestamp, just add the output format expected +'%s':

$ TZ=GMT0 busybox date -d "$gdate" -D '%a %b %d %T %Y %Z' +'%s'
1514851199

¹

The busybox date has most of the GNU date command's capabilities and one that the GNU date command doesn't: the -D option. Get the busybox help as follows:

$ busybox date --help

BusyBox v1.27.2 (Debian 1:1.27.2-2) multi-call binary.

Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]

Display time (using +FMT), or set time

 [-s,--set] TIME Set time to TIME
 -u,--utc Work in UTC (don't convert to local time)
 -R,--rfc-2822 Output RFC-2822 compliant date string
 -I[SPEC] Output ISO-8601 compliant date string
 SPEC='date' (default) for date only,
 'hours', 'minutes', or 'seconds' for date and
 time to the indicated precision
 -r,--reference FILE Display last modification time of FILE
 -d,--date TIME Display TIME, not 'now'
 -D FMT Use FMT for -d TIME conversion

Note the -D FMT option.

²

Note that you may be able to call busybox date in two ways:

$ busybox date

Or, if a link to busybox with the name date has been installed in the correct PATH directory:

$ date

To verify, just ask for --version or --help to find out which date you have installed.

With GNU date:

$ date --version
date (GNU coreutils) 8.28

Or (busybox date):

$ date --help
BusyBox v1.27.2 (Debian 1:1.27.2-2) multi-call binary.
Ã¢Â€Â¦
Ã¢Â€Â¦

edited Feb 10 at 8:27

JdeBP

28.4k459133

answered Feb 9 at 18:45

Isaac

6,6381734

edited Feb 10 at 8:27

JdeBP

28.4k459133

edited Feb 10 at 8:27

JdeBP

28.4k459133

edited Feb 10 at 8:27

JdeBP

28.4k459133

answered Feb 9 at 18:45

Isaac

6,6381734

answered Feb 9 at 18:45

Isaac

6,6381734

answered Feb 9 at 18:45

Isaac

6,6381734

I guess I must have a different busybox version than you're using here, all I get with your example is date: invalid option -- 'D' BusyBox v1.24.1 (2018-01-11 16:07:45 PST) multi-call binary. Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]. It's a good answer though, I'll probably accept it if I don't get anything that will work for me here.
â€“Â Nic
Feb 9 at 21:39

Actually I'm not sure how that works at all... from the documentation here busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html there is a set of recognized TIME formats, none of which include a named month
â€“Â Nic
Feb 9 at 21:46

@Nic The version 1.24.0 is from January-2017. Strange: I downloaded that version (busybox-i686) from that link and it has the -D FMT option. Also (at the same link) you can download busybox 1.27, it is just of size 900k Byte.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 21:57

@Nic On re-reading the documentation on the page you link to it is clear that the last option is -D FMT Use FMT for -d TIME conversion. You should be able to see it.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 22:05

I see it there, and it works on my host machine, but unfortunately just doesn't work on the yocto image I'm working with
â€“Â Nic
Feb 13 at 22:38

add a commentÂ |Â

I guess I must have a different busybox version than you're using here, all I get with your example is date: invalid option -- 'D' BusyBox v1.24.1 (2018-01-11 16:07:45 PST) multi-call binary. Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]. It's a good answer though, I'll probably accept it if I don't get anything that will work for me here.
â€“Â Nic
Feb 9 at 21:39

Actually I'm not sure how that works at all... from the documentation here busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html there is a set of recognized TIME formats, none of which include a named month
â€“Â Nic
Feb 9 at 21:46

@Nic The version 1.24.0 is from January-2017. Strange: I downloaded that version (busybox-i686) from that link and it has the -D FMT option. Also (at the same link) you can download busybox 1.27, it is just of size 900k Byte.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 21:57

@Nic On re-reading the documentation on the page you link to it is clear that the last option is -D FMT Use FMT for -d TIME conversion. You should be able to see it.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 22:05

I see it there, and it works on my host machine, but unfortunately just doesn't work on the yocto image I'm working with
â€“Â Nic
Feb 13 at 22:38

I guess I must have a different busybox version than you're using here, all I get with your example is

date: invalid option -- 'D' BusyBox v1.24.1 (2018-01-11 16:07:45 PST) multi-call binary. Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]

. It's a good answer though, I'll probably accept it if I don't get anything that will work for me here.
â€“Â Nic
Feb 9 at 21:39

I guess I must have a different busybox version than you're using here, all I get with your example is

date: invalid option -- 'D' BusyBox v1.24.1 (2018-01-11 16:07:45 PST) multi-call binary. Usage: date [OPTIONS] [+FMT] [TIME]

. It's a good answer though, I'll probably accept it if I don't get anything that will work for me here.
â€“Â Nic
Feb 9 at 21:39

Actually I'm not sure how that works at all... from the documentation here busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html there is a set of recognized TIME formats, none of which include a named month
â€“Â Nic
Feb 9 at 21:46

@Nic The version 1.24.0 is from January-2017. Strange: I downloaded that version (busybox-i686) from that link and it has the -D FMT option. Also (at the same link) you can download busybox 1.27, it is just of size 900k Byte.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 21:57

@Nic On re-reading the documentation on the page you link to it is clear that the last option is -D FMT Use FMT for -d TIME conversion. You should be able to see it.
â€“Â Isaac
Feb 9 at 22:05

I see it there, and it works on my host machine, but unfortunately just doesn't work on the yocto image I'm working with
â€“Â Nic
Feb 13 at 22:38

add a commentÂ |Â

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