GETDATE(1)

💅 getdate(1) — date converter supreme 💅

ok bestie, the manual name is getdate and it lives in the User Commands section, which is exactly where you'd expect a little date-formatting icon to live. let's get into it 💖

🌈 NAME 🌈

getdate — AME

that's it. that's the whole name section. "AME." bestie we report the facts, that's all it says. 🙈

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

[-dv][-n dec][-f format] [ra dec sys] itype2otype [date and/or time]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Convert date and time between various formats. that is literally the entire job description (AME) and honestly?? it ate. no notes.

here's the other way you can call it, when you're feeding it a file instead of a date on the command line:

[-dv][-n dec][-f format] itype2otype @file

🎀 itype — the format you're coming FROM

• nfd — ISOFITS
• fd — FITS
• dt — yyyy.mmdd
• hr — hh:mm:ss
• deg — dd:mm:ss
• jd — Julian Date
• mjd — Modified Julian Date
• hjd — Heliocentric Julian Date
• mhjd — Modified HJD
• ep — epoch
• epj — Julian epoch
• epb — Besselian epoch
• lt — local time
• ut — UT
• ts — seconds since 1950-01-01
• now — current time
• ang — fractional degrees

🎀 otype — the format you're going TO

• fd — FITS
• dt — yyyy.mmdd
• jd — Julian Date
• mjd — Modified Julian Date
• hjd — Heliocentric Julian Date
• mhjd — Modified HJD
• hr — hh:mm:ss
• deg — dd:mm:ss
• ang — fractional degrees
• ep — epoch
• epj — Julian epoch
• epb — Besselian epoch
• ts — seconds since 1950-01-01
• tsu — Unix sec
• tsi — IRAF sec
• gst — Greenwich Sidereal Time
• lst — Local Sidereal Time
• sec — fractional arcseconds

📂 the @file situation 📂

• First one or two columns are in itype format
• ra dec sys: Need for Heliocentric conversions

that second bit is important, bestie — you only need it when you're doing the Heliocentric conversions, so don't skip it if that's your vibe. 🔥

🔧 the flags, in order, all of them

• -a — Append date to input file, if there is one
• -d — Print date without time
• -e — Print output as ET/TDT/TT converting from UT
• -f — Format for output number (C printf)
• -h hours — Longitude in hours, west positive
• -l degrees — Longitude in degrees, west positive
• -m — Replace numeric month with English abbreviation
• -n num — Number of decimal places in sec, epoch, JD
• -s days — Number of days to subtract
• -t — Print time without date
• -v — Verbose

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that's the whole page, bestie, every last letter of it. go forth and getdate. 🫶

source: getdate EB_SOURCE — dated February 2026. love that for us. mwah. 💋