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If given an argument that does not start with ‘+’, date sets
the system clock to the date and time specified by that argument (as
described below). You must have appropriate privileges to set the
system clock. Note for changes to persist across a reboot, the
hardware clock may need to be updated from the system clock, which
might not happen automatically on your system.
The argument must consist entirely of digits, which have the following meaning:
MM’DD’hh’mm’CC’YY’ss’Note, the --date and --set options may not be used with an
argument in the above format. The --universal option may be used
with such an argument to indicate that the specified date and time are
relative to Universal Time rather than to the local time zone.