tar: Date input formats

1 
1 7 Date input formats
1 ********************
1 
1 First, a quote:
1 
1      Our units of temporal measurement, from seconds on up to months,
1      are so complicated, asymmetrical and disjunctive so as to make
1      coherent mental reckoning in time all but impossible.  Indeed, had
1      some tyrannical god contrived to enslave our minds to time, to make
1      it all but impossible for us to escape subjection to sodden
1      routines and unpleasant surprises, he could hardly have done better
1      than handing down our present system.  It is like a set of
1      trapezoidal building blocks, with no vertical or horizontal
1      surfaces, like a language in which the simplest thought demands
1      ornate constructions, useless particles and lengthy
1      circumlocutions.  Unlike the more successful patterns of language
1      and science, which enable us to face experience boldly or at least
1      level-headedly, our system of temporal calculation silently and
1      persistently encourages our terror of time.
1 
1      ... It is as though architects had to measure length in feet, width
1      in meters and height in ells; as though basic instruction manuals
1      demanded a knowledge of five different languages.  It is no wonder
1      then that we often look into our own immediate past or future, last
1      Tuesday or a week from Sunday, with feelings of helpless confusion.
1      ...
1 
1      --Robert Grudin, 'Time and the Art of Living'.
1 
1    This section describes the textual date representations that GNU
1 programs accept.  These are the strings you, as a user, can supply as
1 arguments to the various programs.  The C interface (via the
1 'parse_datetime' function) is not described here.
1 

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