ut

ut is a command line tool to handle a unix timestamp.

Motivation

There is a number of times to generate/parse unix timestamps.
I think date command exists to handle these situations. But there are a few problems that they are small, but vital for me.

• cannot use same options between macOS and Linux.
• hard to remember usage. (it might be happen because of above problem.)

That’s why I made a new command line tool ut-cli.

I hope ut-cli works well when developers need to use the command which requires timestamps like aws-cli.

Example usage

Search logs from specific time period.

# from yesterday to today
$ aws logs filter-log-events \
    --log-group-name <LOG_GROUP_NAME> \
    --log-stream-names <LOG_STREAM_NAMES> \
    --query <QUERY> \
    --start-time $(ut -p ms g -b yesterday) \
    --end-time $(ut -p ms g -b today)

Installation

If you have rust toolchain, ut-cli can be installed with cargo.

$ cargo install ut-cli

or clone the repository and build it.

$ git clone https://github.com/yoshihitoh/ut-cli
$ cd ut-cli
$ cargo build --release
$ ./target/release/ut --version
ut 0.1.7

Also there are pre-built binary for Linux, macOS and Windows.
See releases.

Usage

ut-cli 0.1.7
yoshihitoh <yoshihito.arih@gmail.com>
A command line tool to handle unix timestamp.
USAGE:
    ut [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] <SUBCOMMAND>
FLAGS:
    -u, --utc        Use utc timezone.
    -h, --help       Prints help information
    -V, --version    Prints version information
OPTIONS:
    -o, --offset <OFFSET>          Use given value as timezone offset.
    -p, --precision <PRECISION>
            Set the precision of output timestamp.
SUBCOMMANDS:
    generate    Generate unix timestamp with given options.
    help        Prints this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
    parse       Parse a unix timestamp and print it in human readable format.

You can set options via envrionment variables.

UT_DATETIME_FORMAT follows chrono’s datetime specifiers.
See the document for details.

# Set variables.
$ export UT_OFFSET='09:00'  # Use JST(+9).
$ export UT_PRECISION=millisecond  # Use timestamps in milliseconds.
# Generate a timestamp.
$ ut g
1588059756238
# Parse a timestamp.
$ echo 1588059756238 | ut p
2020-04-28 16:42:36.238 (+09:00)
# Change custom format and timezone.
$ export UT_DATETIME_FORMAT="%m/%d/%Y"
$ echo 1588059756238 | ut --offset=-7 p
04/28/2020

is equivalent to

$ ut -o '09:00' -p millisecond p $(ut -o '09:00' -p millisecond g)

There are two subcommands available for now.

• generate(g)
• parse(p)

Generate a unix timestamp

Generate a unix timestamp of the midnight of today.

$ ut generate -b today
1560870000
# You can use `-p` option to show it in millisecond.
$ ut -p ms generate -b today
1560870000000

You can specify time deltas with -d option.

# 3days, 12hours, 30minutes later from the midnight of today.
$ ut g -b today -d 3day -d 12hour -d 30minute
1561174200
# You can use short name on time unit.
$ ut g -b today -d 3d -d 12h -d 30min
1561174200
# You can modify a timestamp with a timestamp argument.
$ ut g -d 1min 1561174200
1561174260    # 1min(=60second) difference.

Parse a unix timestamp

Parse a unix timestamp and print it in human readable format.

$ ut p $(ut g -b today)
2019-06-19 00:00:00 (+09:00)
# You can parse timestamp in milliseconds.
$ ut -p ms p $(ut -p ms g -b today -d 11h -d 22min -d 33s -d 444ms)
2019-06-19 11:22:33.444 (+09:00)

Change timezone

Local timezone

If you don’t set timezone options, ut command uses local timezone.

In Japan(UTC+9):

$ ut g --ymd 2019-06-24
1561302000
$ ut p 1561302000
2019-06-24 00:00:00 (+09:00)

You can use -u or --utc option to use UTC timezone.

$ ut --utc p 1561302000
2019-06-23 15:00:00 (UTC)

You can use fixed offset timezone on any environment.

# Generate PST timestamp
$ ut -o -8 g --ymd 2019-06-24
1561363200
# Parse as PST timestamp
$ ut -o -8 p 1561363200
2019-06-24 00:00:00 (-08:00)
# Parse as UTC timestamp
$ ut -o 0 p 1561363200
2019-06-24 08:00:00 (+00:00)

TODO

• Add more information on README