A question about the date Function

[Martin McCormick]

Thanks to those who answered my question. I have discovered in
the process one big difference between the date function in
freebsd and Linux. Under freebsd, date -r 1234567890 or whatever
value you need converts that unsigned long in to the normal date
output set to that reference value. IN Linux, -r should be
followed by a file name and it gives you the formatted date
as read from the mtime of that reference file.