Getting Yesterday, Tomorrow Date and N Days Ahead in Bash date

How to Output Specific Dates with Bash date Command

This article introduces how to output yesterday’s date, tomorrow’s, several days ahead, and several days ago using the date command in Bash on Linux PCs and servers command line.

Output Yesterday’s Date

To output yesterday’s date, specify '-1 day' in the --date option.

$ date +%-m/%-d --date='-1 day'

Output Date Several Days Ago

For example, to output the date 7 days ago, specify '-7 day'.

$ date +%-m/%-d --date='-7 day'

Output example:

3/6

Output Date 1 Year Ago

To output the date 1 year ago, specify '-365 day'.

$ date +%-m/%-d --date='-365 day'

Output example:

3/13

Output Tomorrow’s Date

To output tomorrow’s date, specify '+1 day'.

$ date +%-m/%-d --date='+1 day'

Output Date Several Days Ahead

For example, to output the date 2 days ahead, specify '+2 day'.

$ date +%-m/%-d --date='+2 day'

Output example:

3/15

Output Date Several Days and Several Months Ahead

To output the date 2 days and 2 months ahead, specify '+2 day +2 month'.

$ date +%-m/%-d --date='+2 day +2 month'

Output example:

5/15

Reference Links

For more details, also refer to the related Stack Overflow thread.