print the current date and time with sfk time ,or run a clock showing absolute and relative time permanently

- download the free Swiss File Knife Base from Sourceforge.
- open the Windows CMD command line, Mac OS X Terminal or Linux shell.
- OS X : type mv sfk-mac-i686.exe sfk and chmod +x sfk then ./sfk
- Linux: type mv sfk-linux.exe sfk    and chmod +x sfk then ./sfk
  OS X and Linux syntax may differ, check the help within the tool.

sfk time [options] [format]
sfk clock[2]

prints the current date and time, or shows
a clock with absolute and relative time.

format:
   Y = year
   M = month
   D = day
   h = hour
   m = minute
   s = second
   any other char is passed through.
   default format is YMDhms.

options
   -nice     print format Y-M-D h:m:s
   -spat     support slash patterns \t etc.
   -from n   print unix timestamp n as human readable time.

aliases
   sfk clock2     show just a relative time
   sfk clock3     also shows overall start time
                  and (on Enter) a second column with
                  relative time since overall start

interactive control
   press Enter while displaying sfk clock
   to reset the relative time.

chaining support
   cannot use chain input data.

see also
   sfk unixtime   prints the unix timestamp
   sfk sleep      delay execution for some time

web reference
   http://stahlworks.com/sfk-time

examples
   sfk time -spat "Y-M-D\th:m:s" +filt -tabform "$col2 $col1"
      prints 2011-06-16 06:17:31 to terminal,
      with a tab character between date and time,
      post processing the output by sfk filter.
   sfk clock
      permanently show absolute and relative time.

read more about all sfk functions here.