TS(1)

💖 TS(1) 💖

okay bestie, buckle up, because ts from the moreutils crew is here and she is so much more useful than her tiny name makes her sound 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

ts — she timestamps your input, that's the whole job, and she eats every time 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

ts [-r] [-i | -s] [-m] [format]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

ts adds a timestamp to the beginning of each line of input. That's it. That's the whole vibe. Your boring stream of lines becomes a little diary with receipts. 📓✨

The optional format parameter controls how the timestamp is formatted, exactly as used by strftime(3). The default format is "%b %d %H:%M:%S" — iconic, timeless, no notes.

Now here's the spicy part 🔥: besides all the regular strftime conversion specifications, ts also gives you "%.S", "%.s" and "%.T". These are like "%S", "%s" and "%T" but with subsecond resolution, iykyk. So instead of a boring whole second you get stuff like "30.00001" and "1301682593.00001" and "1:15:30.00001". Tiny little crumbs of precision 💀✨

If the -r switch is passed, she switches gears entirely: instead of adding timestamps, she converts existing timestamps in the input to relative times, like "15m5s ago". So relatable, honestly — everything is "ago" if you think about it 😭. Lots of common timestamp formats are supported, ngl she's flexible like that.

⚠️ bestie, heads up: the Time::Duration and Date::Parse perl modules are required for this mode to work. If you don't have them, this mode is just not happening. Also — currently, converting localized dates is not supported. Periodt.

If both -r and a format is passed, then the existing timestamps get converted to the specified format instead. Two modes, one slay 🌈

If the -i or -s switch is passed, ts reports incremental timestamps instead of absolute ones. The default format changes to "%H:%M:%S" when you do this (not the usual default, kmow the difference bestie), and "%.S" and "%.s" can be used as well.

• in case of -i, every timestamp will be the time elapsed since the last timestamp — so it's like, what changed since last time? deltas, gaps, the drama between lines 💅
• in case of -s, the time elapsed since start of the program is used — so it's a running stopwatch from the moment she woke up ⏱️

The -m switch makes the system's monotonic clock be used. Main character energy: she does not care what the wall clock thinks, she only moves forward. 👑

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🌿 ENVIRONMENT 🌿

• TZ — the standard TZ environment variable controls what time zone dates are assumed to be in, if a timezone is not specified as part of the date. Basically: if the date doesn't say where it's from, TZ gets to decide its whole personality. 🕰️

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Copyright 2006 by Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name> 🎀

Licensed under the GNU GPL.

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this is TS(1) from moreutils, dated 2026-04-16 — go timestamp something and make it everyone's problem. no cap. 🦋✨