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Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 14:58:34 -0500 (EST)
From: "Crist J. Clark" <cjc@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com>
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Subject: docs/17250: Unclear language on date(1) manpage for -r option
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>Number:         17250
>Category:       docs
>Synopsis:       Unclear language on date(1) manpage for -r option
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-doc
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          doc-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Tue Mar  7 12:00:01 PST 2000
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Crist J. Clark
>Release:        FreeBSD 3.4-STABLE i386
>Organization:
>Environment:

	FreeBSD 3-STABLE, FreeBSD 2.2-STABLE

>Description:

	The '-r' option for the date(1) command reads in the manpage,

     -r      Print out the date and time in seconds from the Epoch.

Which to me sounds like it is going to return the time in that
form. However, what that is supposed to mean is that the UNIX Epoch
time in seconds is takenn as the argument and printed out in the
default format or whatever format the user has specified with a
'+format' argument.

>How-To-Repeat:

	% date -r 0
        Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 EST 1969
	% date -r 0  +%m/%d/%y
        12/31/69
	% date -r 0  +%s
        0
	% man date

>Fix:
	
	I think the simple change from 'in' to 'at' in the above quote
from the manpage should do it, but add a few more words on the UNIX
Epoch to aid the uninitiated since it comes up no where else on this
manpage. 

--- /usr/src/bin/date/date.1    Fri Dec 17 06:32:08 1999
+++ date.1      Tue Mar  7 14:55:12 2000
@@ -92,9 +92,9 @@
 .Nm
 from setting the time for other than the current machine.
 .It Fl r
-Print out the date and time in
+Print out the date and time at
 .Ar seconds
-from the Epoch.
+from the start of the UNIX Epoch (Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 GMT 1970).
 .It Fl t
 Set the kernel's value for minutes west of
 .Tn GMT .

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:


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