Need a space in date format

[Tom Weber_4]

Small issue here with a date format. When I do this at the command line I get desired output:

date "+%b %e"
Jan 7

When I do this:
current=`date "+%b %e"`
echo $current
Jan 7

I lose the extra blank space that I want. What am I missing here?

Thanks in advance! Tom

[Tom Weber_4]

That should show "Jan 7" with two spaces on that first output. I don't think the format came out properly on my initial post.

Tom

[Chris Watkins_1 · Accepted solution]

echo "${current}"

or

echo "$current"



Will maintain the spacing.

[Dave Johnson_1]

The man page for echo states:
"echo writes its arguments separated by blanks..."

It is treating your string as a list of arguments. You will need to quote the environment variable like this:

current=`date "+%b %d"`
echo "$current"
Jan 7

Later
-Dave

[Tom Weber_4]

Got it Chris! Knew it was something simple I was missing. Thanks!