Description

date@ uses tcpclient(1) to connect to TCP port 13 on host and prints any data that it receives. It uses delcr(1) and cat(1) to remove CR (\015) and convert unprintable characters to a visible format.

If host is not supplied, date@ connects to the local host.

TCP port 13 is the well-known port for the Daytime service. Some computers respond to connections on this port with a human-readable date. For example, they may be running tcpserver -R -H -l0 0 13 date using tcpserver(1).

History

date@ was originally part of Daniel J. Bernstein's ucspi-tcp toolset in 1999.

Author

Original code and documentation by Daniel J. Bernstein. Documentation modernizations by Jonathan de Boyne Pollard.