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date: support MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss] positional argument for setting date - #11534

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aguimaraes wants to merge 19 commits into
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aguimaraes:date-positional-set-format
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date: support MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss] positional argument for setting date#11534
aguimaraes wants to merge 19 commits into
uutils:mainfrom
aguimaraes:date-positional-set-format

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@aguimaraes

@aguimaraes aguimaraes commented Mar 28, 2026

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Fixes #6398

The date command accepts a bare positional argument to set the system clock:

date 03271430 # March 27, 14:30, current year
date 0327143025 # 2-digit year (25 -> 2025)
date 032714302025 # 4-digit year
date 032714302025.30 # with seconds

Previously, any positional argument without a + prefix was rejected with "invalid date". This was already documented in the usage string but never implemented.

The parser lives in date.rs rather than the parse_datetime crate because this format is specific to the date command positional argument. It follows the existing pattern in this codebase where touch has its own parse_timestamp() for the similar [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss] format.

The implementation rearranges the input into CCYYMMDDhhmm[.ss] and delegates to jiff::fmt::strtime::parse for validation, same approach as touch::parse_timestamp(). Two-digit years use the same century rule as touch: 00-68 -> 20xx, 69-99 -> 19xx.

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github-actions Bot commented Mar 28, 2026

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GNU testsuite comparison:

GNU test failed: tests/misc/io-errors. tests/misc/io-errors is passing on 'main'. Maybe you have to rebase?
Skip an intermittent issue tests/date/date-locale-hour (fails in this run but passes in the 'main' branch)
Skip an intermittent issue tests/rm/isatty (fails in this run but passes in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/tty/tty-eof (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Congrats! The gnu test tests/tee/tee is no longer failing!
Note: The gnu test tests/cut/bounded-memory is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Note: The gnu test tests/cut/cut-huge-range is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Congrats! The gnu test tests/printf/printf-surprise is now passing!

@aguimaraes
aguimaraes force-pushed the date-positional-set-format branch from 01e8f66 to edbe04d Compare March 28, 2026 15:03
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github-actions Bot commented Mar 28, 2026

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GNU testsuite comparison:

Skip an intermittent issue tests/cut/bounded-memory (fails in this run but passes in the 'main' branch)
Skip an intermittent issue tests/date/resolution (fails in this run but passes in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/date/date-locale-hour (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/pr/bounded-memory (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Note: The gnu test tests/tail/pipe-f is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Note: The gnu test tests/tail/tail-n0f is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Note: The gnu test tests/unexpand/bounded-memory is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Congrats! The gnu test tests/basenc/bounded-memory is now passing!
Congrats! The gnu test tests/cp/link-heap is now passing!

@codspeed-hq

codspeed-hq Bot commented Mar 28, 2026 •
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Merging this PR will not alter performance

✅ 347 untouched benchmarks
⏩ 46 skipped benchmarks1

Comparing aguimaraes:date-positional-set-format (71823e2) with main (89bdbb8)

Open in CodSpeed

Footnotes

  1. 46 benchmarks were skipped, so the baseline results were used instead. If they were deleted from the codebase, click here and archive them to remove them from the performance reports. ↩

@aguimaraes
aguimaraes force-pushed the date-positional-set-format branch from edbe04d to 5e0e12b Compare March 28, 2026 15:44
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github-actions Bot commented Mar 28, 2026

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GNU testsuite comparison:

Skip an intermittent issue tests/cut/bounded-memory (fails in this run but passes in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/date/date-locale-hour (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/pr/bounded-memory (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Congrats! The gnu test tests/misc/io-errors is no longer failing!
Note: The gnu test tests/rm/many-dir-entries-vs-OOM is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Note: The gnu test tests/tail/pipe-f is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Congrats! The gnu test tests/unexpand/bounded-memory is now passing!

sylvestre
sylvestre reviewed Mar 29, 2026
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Comment thread src/uu/date/src/date.rs
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github-actions Bot commented Mar 29, 2026

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GNU testsuite comparison:

Skipping an intermittent issue tests/date/date-locale-hour (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/pr/bounded-memory (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/tty/tty-eof (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Congrats! The gnu test tests/tail/tail-n0f is now passing!

@github-actions

github-actions Bot commented Apr 13, 2026

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GNU testsuite comparison:

Skip an intermittent issue tests/tail/tail-n0f (fails in this run but passes in the 'main' branch)
Skip an intermittent issue tests/tty/tty-eof (fails in this run but passes in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/date/date-locale-hour (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Congrats! The gnu test tests/printf/printf-surprise is now passing!

@github-actions

github-actions Bot commented Apr 15, 2026 •
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GNU testsuite comparison:

Skip an intermittent issue tests/rm/isatty (fails in this run but passes in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/date/resolution (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/misc/tty-eof (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/tail/symlink (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/tail/tail-n0f (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Congrats! The gnu test tests/printf/printf-surprise is now passing!

@aguimaraes

aguimaraes commented Apr 24, 2026

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hey guys, is there anything else I can change to make this good enough to merge?

@aguimaraes
Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/main' into date-positional-set…
d6fab26 
…-format

# Conflicts:
#	tests/by-util/test_date.rs
@aguimaraes

aguimaraes commented May 4, 2026 •
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@cakebaker would you mind taking a look, please? I merged main, conflicts resolved, all tests passing.
@sylvestre's earlier review feedback (unit tests for parse_positional_set_datetime) was addressed back in March.
Happy to make any further changes, just want to know if there's a path to merge or if I should close.

sylvestre
sylvestre reviewed May 16, 2026
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Comment thread src/uu/date/src/date.rs Outdated
@aguimaraes
tests/date: use Uid::is_root() for the euid check
2168232 
rustix's geteuid() returns a Uid rather than an integer, so comparing it
to 0 no longer compiles. Match the other call sites in this file.
@aguimaraes
aguimaraes force-pushed the date-positional-set-format branch from 034f9bd to 2168232 Compare August 3, 2026 23:32
@aguimaraes

aguimaraes commented Aug 4, 2026

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@sylvestre hey, I've solved the latest conflicts and fixed a small existing compatibility gap.
Are we in a good state to merge or should I close it?
I'm keeping this up since March and I'm losing hope that it can be merged.
Thank you.

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date: date setting format error

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