[4069] in Athena Bugs
suggestion: /bin/date
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard Basch)
Mon Jan 29 05:27:46 1990
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 90 05:27:27 -0500
To: bugs@MIT.EDU
From: Richard Basch <probe@MIT.EDU>
Add an option that will print the date in seconds since GMT Jan 1, 1970.
Having a numeric output may be useful for scripts trying to do updates
or make arithmetic comparisons.
Two immediate applications that require this are:
- the nightly AFS backups... some time analysis has to be done; it is
taking far too long, and there is too much deviation nightly.
- backups of the sources when all the sources are moved to AFS... the
UNIX time will be needed in order to determine when to take the
incremental from. "vos dump" takes an optional time argument in
this form.
In fact, many programs either display times or use them in this form; it
will also simplify parsing track statfiles, as a difference can then be
done from the current time.
I am only suggesting 3 things right now, but I am sure there are a lot
more. I know that a special version of "date" is going to be created
regardless of the decision, and since this is happening, I am suggesting
that an option be added to the release version.
-Richard
