Bash Clocks

What time is it? There are many sources you can check to find the answer. Opal makes it a bit easier to display the current time in the different parts of the world on the command line. The ~/opal/bash/aliases-clocks.bash contains many aliases defined for your convenience, but this list is not meant to be comprehensive. Please use these examples to help define your own. Copy it into your custom dotfiles, rather than updating Opal.

When you ran the install script, a clocks alias was added to your $HOME/.bashrc file. That was provided as a starting point. You should update it to meet your needs.

This code shows a small sample of what’s available.

alias utc="TZ=UTC date '+%c -- Universal Time'"
alias eastern="TZ=US/Eastern date '+%c -- US Eastern'"
alias central="TZ=US/Central date '+%c -- US Central'"
alias mountain="TZ=US/Mountain date '+%c -- US Mountain'"
alias arizona="TZ=US/Arizona date '+%c -- US Arizona'"
alias pacific="TZ=US/Pacific date '+%c -- US Pacific'"
alias toronto="TZ=America/Toronto date '+%c -- Canada, Toronto'"
alias vancouver="TZ=America/Vancouver date '+%c -- Canada, Vancouver'"
alias winnipeg="TZ=America/Winnipeg date '+%c -- Canada, Winnipeg'"
alias mexico_city="TZ=America/Mexico_City date '+%c -- Mexico, Mexico City'"
alias us_clocks="eastern; central; mountain; arizona; pacific"

In addition to individual clocks, there are several regional aliases.

alias na_clocks="eastern; central; mountain; arizona; pacific; opal:spacer; toronto; mexico_city; winnipeg; vancouver"
alias sa_clocks="santiago; bogota; buenos_aires; sao_paulo"
alias af_clocks="cairo; casablanca; freetown; mogadishu; nairobi; tripoli; tunis"
alias eu_clocks="cardiff; dublin; london; lisbon; paris; berlin; rome; zurich; madrid; belgrade; moscow; kyiv"
alias asia_clocks="hong_kong; shanghai; tokyo; saigon; jerusalem; baghdad"
alias pac_clocks="tahiti; honolulu; perth; guam; opal:spacer; brisbane; adelaide; melbourne; sydney; auckland"

There’s an alias for us_clocks but there isn’t one for Canada-only timezones. So let’s make our own now, eh?

alias canada_clocks="vancouver; winnipeg; toronto"

When you execute the canada_clocks alias, you’ll see output like this:

Wed Oct 22 14:13:01 2025 -- Canada, Vancouver
Wed Oct 22 16:13:01 2025 -- Canada, Winnipeg
Wed Oct 22 17:13:01 2025 -- Canada, Toronto