Specifying Dates and Times

When specifying dates and times, you will use one of two time formats: absolute or delta.

Absolute times are displayed in the format DD-MMM-YYYY HH:MM:SS.CC by default, as in 12-APR-2002 11:30:00.00. Please note that your system manager may choose some other format, but this is fairly uncommon.

When referring to the current day, you may omit the date, as in 11:30:00.00. This expression may be simplified further to 11:30. Examples of this time format are shown in the following DIRECTORY commands, which search for any files created after a certain time:

     $ DIRECTORY /CREATED/SINCE="01-JAN-2000"     $ DIRECTORY /CREATED/SINCE="14-AUG-2000 14:30"     $ DIRECTORY /CREATED/SINCE="09:00" 

Delta times are offsets from the current time and are expressed by d-hh:mm:ss. So, one week ago would be specified as -7-00:00:00 or -7-. Two days and five hours from now would be +2-05:00:00 or +2-05.

     $ DIRECTORY /CREATED/SINCE="-7-" ! 7 days ago     $ DIRECTORY /CREATED/SINCE="-3-02:30" ! 3 days, 2 hours, 30 minutes ago 

You may also use the keywords YESTERDAY, TODAY, and TOMORROW to specify midnight on each of those three days:

    $ DIRECTORY /CREATED/SINCE="YESTERDAY"   ! Midnight yesterday.    $ DIRECTORY /CREATED/SINCE="YESTERDAY+3" ! 3 A.M. yesterday.    $ DIRECTORY /CREATED/SINCE="TODAY"       ! Since midnight.    $ SUBMIT CLEANUP/AFTER="TOMORROW"        ! Run job at midnight.    $ SUBMIT CLEANUP/AFTER="TOMORROW+0-03"   ! 3 A.M. tomorrow.    $ SUBMIT CLEANUP/AFTER="TOMORROW+5-"     ! Five days from midnight.