---
name: "sdate"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "sdate"
version: "0.7"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/sdate"
---

# sdate(1)

never ending September date

## NAME

sdate - never ending September date

## SYNOPSIS

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

## DESCRIPTION

**sdate** runs a command in an environment wherein it wraps the libc localtime() and gmtime() calls such that the program will use the eternal September date. The wrapper functions are in a shared library **/usr/lib/libsdate/libsdate.so\*** which is loaded through the  **LD\_PRELOAD** mechanism of the dynamic loader. (See [**ld.so**(8)](/ld.so/8.md))

## OPTIONS

- **-e** *yyyy-mm*, **--epoch** *yyyy-mm*

  Specify an alternative epoch, default is 1993-09.

- **-c** *vv*, **--covid** *vv*

  Enable COVID mode, for the specified variant. Sets epoch to an appropriate value for the variant.

- **-l** *library*, **--lib** *library*

  Specify an alternative wrapper library.

- **\[--\]** *command*

  Any command you want to be ran. Use ‘--’ if in the command you have other options that may confuse sdate's option parsing.

- **-h**

  Display help.

- **-v**

  Display version.

## FILES

*/usr/lib/libsdate/\** The shared library containing the wrapper functions.

## 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.

## SEE ALSO

- http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/S/September-that-never-ended.html

  - https://www.df7cb.de/projects/sdate/

  ## COPYING

**sdate** is distributed under the GNU General Public License. (GPL v2 or later).

## AUTHORS

- Christoph Berg

  \<*cb@df7cb.de*\>