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Accepted
Alice
Asked: 2019-05-10 05:08:40 +0800 CST

date -d 'previous Monday" to display the preceding Monday

  • 772

With date -d could display the future or next date 

$ date -d "next mon"
Mon May 13 00:00:00 CST 2019

$ date -d "mon"
Mon May 13 00:00:00 CST 2019

Unfortunately, it failed to display the previous weekday 

$ date -d "previous Monday"
date: invalid date ‘previous Monday’

How could display the previous weekday in a string-format?

bash

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Use last instead of previous:

    $ date -d "last Monday"
Mon May  6 00:00:00 BST 2019

    This is documented in info date, and the specific mention of last is in the "29.6 Day of week items" section (thanks to @Jos and @hobbs for finding it):

    A number may precede a day of the week item to move forward supplementary weeks. It is best used in expression like ‘third monday’. In this context, ‘last day’ or ‘next day’ is also acceptable; they move one week before or after the day that day by itself would represent.

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