Type Function Library os.* Return value String or Table Revision Current Public Release (2013.1076) Keywords time, date, format See also os.time()
os.clock()
system.getTimer()
Returns a string or a table containing date and time, formatted according to the given string format.
os.date( [format [, time] ] )String. If format starts with '!', then the date is formatted in Coordinated Universal Time. After this optional character, if format is the string "*t", then date returns a table with the following fields: year (four digits), month (1--12), day (1--31), hour (0--23), min (0--59), sec (0--61), wday (weekday, Sunday is 1), yday (day of the year), and isdst (daylight saving flag, a boolean).
If format is not "*t", then date returns the date as a string, formatted according to the same rules as the C function strftime().
Number. If the time argument is present, this is the time to be formatted (see the os.time() function for a description of this value). Otherwise, date formats the current time.
When called without arguments, date returns a reasonable date and time representation that depends on the host system and on the current locale (that is, os.date() is equivalent to os.date("%c") ).
local date = os.date( "*t" ) -- returns table of date & time values
print( date.year, date.month ) -- print year and month
print( date.hour, date.min ) -- print hour and minutes
print( os.date( "%c" ) ) -- print out time/date string: e.g., "Thu Oct 23 14:55:02 2010"