How to subtract 5 minute from date

Question

I have this data:

`date +%Y-%m-%d`" 00:00:00"

that return 2015-10-08 00:00:00

I would like cancel 5 minute:

2015-10-07 23:55:00

Many thanks

Answer 1

You need to subtract 5 minutes from a known point in time:

$ date -d "00:00:00 today"
Thu Oct  8 00:00:00 EDT 2015
$ date -d "00:00:00 today -5 minutes"
Wed Oct  7 23:55:00 EDT 2015

You just need to add your format string.