21.1.4 Padding

By default, date pads numeric fields with zeroes, so that, for example, numeric months are always output as two digits. GNU date recognizes the following numeric modifiers between the `%' and the directive.

`-'

(hyphen) do not pad the field; useful if the output is intended for human consumption.

`_'

(underscore) pad the field with spaces; useful if you need a fixed number of characters in the output, but zeroes are too distracting.

These are GNU extensions.

Here is an example illustrating the differences:

date +%d/%m -d "Feb 1" => 01/02 date +%-d/%-m -d "Feb 1" => 1/2 date +%_d/%_m -d "Feb 1" => 1/ 2