r.timestamp - GRASS GIS manual
Author: GRASS Development Team
Description: r.timestamp: Print/add/remove a timestamp for a raster map.
Keywords: raster, metadata, timestamp, time

## NAME

r.timestamp - Modifies a timestamp for a raster map.
Print/add/remove a timestamp for a raster map.

## KEYWORDS

raster, metadata, timestamp, time

## SYNOPSIS

r.timestamp
r.timestamp --help
r.timestamp map=name [date=timestamp] [--help] [--verbose] [--quiet] [--ui]

### Flags:

--help
  Print usage summary
--verbose
  Verbose module output
--quiet
  Quiet module output
--ui
  Force launching GUI dialog

### Parameters:

map=name [required]
  Name of raster map
date=timestamp
  Datetime, datetime1/datetime2, or 'none' to remove
  Format: '15 jan 1994' (absolute) or '2 years' (relative)

## DESCRIPTION

This command has 2 modes of operation. If no date argument is supplied, then the current timestamp for the raster map is printed. If a date argument is specified, then the timestamp for the raster map is set to the specified date(s). See examples below.

## NOTES

Strings containing spaces should be quoted. For specifying a range of time, the two timestamps should be separated by a forward slash. To remove the timestamp from a raster map, use date=none.

## TIMESTAMP FORMAT

The timestamp values must use the format as described in the GRASS Datetime Library. The source tree for this library should have a description of the format. For convenience, the formats are reproduced here:

There are two types of datetime values:

- absolute and
- relative.

Absolute values specify exact dates and/or times. Relative values specify a span of time.

### Absolute

The general format for absolute values is:

      day month year [bc] hour:minute:seconds timezone

    	     day is 1-31
    	     month is jan,feb,...,dec
    	     year is 4 digit year
    	     [bc] if present, indicates dates is BC
    	     hour is 0-23 (24 hour clock)
    	     minute is 0-59
    	     second is 0-59.9999 (fractions of second allowed)
    	     timezone is +hhmm or -hhmm (eg, -0600)

Some parts can be missing, for example

    	     1994 [bc]
    	     Jan 1994 [bc]
    	     15 jan 1000 [bc]
    	     15 jan 1994 [bc] 10 [+0000]
    	     15 jan 1994 [bc] 10:00 [+0100]
    	     15 jan 1994 [bc] 10:00:23.34 [-0500]

### Relative

There are two types of relative datetime values, year-month and day-second. The formats are:

    	     [-] # years # months
    	     [-] # days # hours # minutes # seconds

The words years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds are literal words, and the # are the numeric values. Examples:

    	     2 years
    	     5 months
    	     2 years 5 months
    	     100 days
    	     15 hours 25 minutes 35.34 seconds
    	     100 days 25 minutes
    	     1000 hours 35.34 seconds

The following are illegal because it mixes year-month and day-second (because the number of days in a month or in a year vary):

    	     3 months 15 days
    	     3 years 10 days

## EXAMPLES

Prints the timestamp for the "soils" raster map. If there is no timestamp for "soils", nothing is printed. If there is a timestamp, one or two time strings are printed, depending on if the timestamp for the map consists of a single date or two dates (ie start and end dates).

    r.timestamp map=soils

Sets the timestamp for "soils" to the single date "15 sep 1987".

    r.timestamp map=soils date='15 sep 1987'

Sets the timestamp for "soils" to have the start date "15 sep 1987" and the end date "20 feb 1988".

    r.timestamp map=soils date='15 sep 1987/20 feb 1988'

Sets the timestamp for "soils" to have the start date "18 feb 2005 10:30:00" and the end date "20 jul 2007 20:30:00".

    r.timestamp map=soils date='18 feb 2005 10:30:00/20 jul 2007 20:30:00'

Removes the timestamp for the "soils" raster map.

    r.timestamp map=soils date=none

## KNOWN ISSUES

Spaces in the timestamp value are required.

## SEE ALSO

r.info, r3.timestamp, v.timestamp

## AUTHOR

Michael Shapiro, U.S.Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory

## SOURCE CODE

Available at: r.timestamp source code (history)

Accessed: Monday Jul 13 00:51:13 2026

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