Bash date command invalid date

Question

In linux bash when I enter date -d "1986-01-01" it shows error

date: invalid date "1986-01-01"

when date -d "1986-01-02" it works

when date -d "1987-01-01" it also works

Why date -d "1986-01-01" shows error in Linux Bash shell.

I am using Fedora 16

i have fedora 12, 14 and 15 and they are not showing such error. so i believe it's specific to f16 — raj_gt1
– raj_gt1, Commented May 1, 2013 at 9:17
I can reproduce your problem with TZ=Asia/Kathmandu date -d '1986-01-01'. Most likely it has something to do with the fact that Nepal changed the timezone in 1986. — nosid
– nosid, Commented May 1, 2013 at 9:29
Well done, @nosid, I think you should post this comment as an answer, as it seems to be the point. I get an invalid date from 1986-01-01 to 1986-01-01 00:09:59. 1986-01-01 00:10:00 is already OK. — fedorqui
– fedorqui, Commented May 1, 2013 at 9:38

nosid · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-01 09:55:09Z

11

Nepal changed its timezone at the beginning of 1986. The following table is copied from the tzdata package:

# Zone  NAME            GMTOFF  RULES   FORMAT  [UNTIL]
Zone    Asia/Kathmandu  5:41:16 -       LMT     1920
                        5:30    -       IST     1986
                        5:45    -       NPT     # Nepal Time

That means that on Jan 1 1986 the time from 00:00:00 to 00:14:59 is not valid. The following two commands show, that the first day of 1986 started with 00:15:00:

$ TZ=Asia/Kathmandu date -d '1985-12-31 23:59:59' '+%s'
504901799
$ TZ=Asia/Kathmandu date -d '1986-01-01 00:15:00' '+%s'
504901800

So the error message of date is correct. The date is invalid in this timezone. I am not sure what you are doing with the result of this command. However, you can try to use UTC because all dates are valid and unambiguous in UTC:

$ TZ=UTC date -d '1986-01-01'
Wed Jan  1 00:00:00 UTC 1986

answered May 1, 2013 at 9:55

nosid

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1 Comment

Dinesh Subedi Over a year ago

Thank you I got answer in details

RBH · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-01 09:23:17Z

0

I think you are using alphabet "O" in upper case instead of number "0" in the command :)

answered May 1, 2013 at 9:23

RBH

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