now

now

Description

now is a simple command line utility for printing the current time in a variety of formats. now also supports time deltas.

now is built in Go. now uses the time package to format the current time.

Usage

Below is the usage for the now command.

Now is a simple command line utility for printing the current time in a variety of formats.  Now also supports time deltas.  Now is built in Go and uses the time package to format the current time.

The value for the format flag can be in the Go time format or one of the following constants from the Go time package: ANSIC, RFC822, RFC822Z, RFC850, RFC1123, RFC1123Z, RFC3339, RFC3339Nano, Kitchen, Stamp, StampMilli, StampMicro, and StampNano.

Usage:
  now [flags]

Flags:
  -d, --delta string       the time delta from the current time in the go duration format (default "0s")
  -e, --epoch              print the UNIX Epoch time, which is the duration since midnight on January 1, 1970 UTC.
  -f, --format string      a constant or a verbose time format (default "RFC3339Nano")
  -h, --help               help for now
  -p, --precision string   the precision to use for printing the UNIX Epoch time: seconds (s), milliseconds (ms), or nanoseconds (ns) (default "s")
  -z, --time-zone string   the time zone: either UTC, Local, or name in the IANA Time Zone database (defaults to local time zone)
  -v, --version            print the version

Use the --epoch and --precision flags to print the UNIX Epoch time.

Use the --format flag to print the current time using a custom go format string. The following constants from the Go time package can also be used: ANSIC, RFC822, RFC822Z, RFC850, RFC1123, RFC1123Z, RFC3339, RFC3339Nano, Kitchen, Stamp, StampMilli, StampMicro, and StampNano.

Use the --delta flag to print the {current time} + {delta}. The value for --delta is parsed using the ParseDuration function and supports the following valid units: "ns", "us" (or "µs"), "ms", "s", "m", "h".

Examples

UNIX Epoch Time in Seconds

now -e -p s

UNIX Epoch Time in Milliseconds

now -e -p ms

UNIX Epoch Time in Microseconds

now -e -p us

UNIX Epoch Time in Nanoseconds

now -e -p ns

Custom Go Format

now -f 2006-01-02

2 Hours ago

now -f RFC3339 -d '-2h'

1 Minute from now

now -f RFC3339 -d '1m'

Time Zone

now -f RFC3339 -z America/Los_Angeles

UTC

now -f RFC3339 -z UTC

Building

now is written in pure Go, so the only dependency needed to compile the server is Go. Go can be downloaded from https://golang.ir/dl/.

This project uses direnv to manage environment variables and automatically adding the bin and scripts folder to the path. Install direnv and hook it into your shell. The use of direnv is optional as you can always call now directly with bin/now.

If using macOS, follow the macOS instructions below.

To build a binary for your local operating system you can use make bin/now. To build for a release, you can use make build_release. Additionally, you can call go build directly to support specific use cases.

macOS

You can install go on macOS using homebrew with brew install go.

To install direnv on macOS use brew install direnv. If using bash, then add eval \"$(direnv hook bash)\" to the ~/.bash_profile file . If using zsh, then add eval \"$(direnv hook zsh)\" to the ~/.zshrc file.

Contributing

We'd love to have your contributions! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for more info.

Security

Please see SECURITY.md for more info.

License

This project constitutes a work of the United States Government and is not subject to domestic copyright protection under 17 USC § 105. However, because the project utilizes code licensed from contributors and other third parties, it therefore is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE file for more information.