sdate(1)

📦 version 0.7build1, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 sdate(1) — the Debian manual page, but make it cute 💖

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about sdate — the never ending September date 🍂✨ (yes that's literally its manual name, sdate - never ending September date)

✨ NAME ✨

sdate — never ending September date 🍂🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

sdate [-e|--epoch yyyy-mm] [-c|--covid vv] [-l|--lib library] [--]
[command]

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so here's the tea 🫖: sdate runs a command in an environment where it wraps the libc localtime() and gmtime() calls, so the program will use the eternal September date. iconic behaviour honestly.

the wrapper functions live in a shared library /usr/lib/libsdate/libsdate.so*, and that library gets loaded through the LD_PRELOAD mechanism of the dynamic loader. (see ld.so(8) — go read it, it's giving lore 📖)

👑 OPTIONS 👑

  • -e yyyy-mm, --epoch yyyy-mm — specify an alternative epoch, default is 1993-09. time travel, but make it September 💫
  • -c vv, --covid vv — enable COVID mode 😷 for the specified variant. sets the epoch to an appropriate value for that variant.
  • -l library, --lib library — specify an alternative wrapper library. swap the whole vibe 🎀
  • [--] command — any command you want to be ran 🏃‍♀️💨 use -- if your command has other options that may confuse sdate's option parsing. protect the parser bestie 🛡️
  • -h — display help. we love a helpful icon 🙌
  • -v — display version. main character energy, know thyself ✨

🎀 FILES 🎀

  • /usr/lib/libsdate/* — the shared library containing the wrapper functions. this is where the magic lives 🪄

🦋 ENVIRONMENT 🦋

  • LD_PRELOAD

💀 LIMITATIONS 💀

library versions

every command executed within sdate needs to be linked to the same version of the C library as sdate itself. no mixing, no matching, it's giving strict 💅

not me warning you but like... fr fr, mismatched libc versions and this whole thing goes sideways 😭

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

💜 COPYING 💜

sdate is distributed under the GNU General Public License. (GPL v2 or later). slay, legally 🫶

⭐ AUTHORS ⭐

Christoph Berg — <cb@df7cb.de> 👑

and that's the whole thing bestie!! this page came to you from the Debian Project, dated 4620 September 1993 📅✨ (yes the date is like that, don't ask, it's the eternal September of it all 🍂) — version sdate(1), mwah 💋🎀

📦 where this page comes from