Renaming Files

[Christian Briddon]

I am trying to write a small script that periodically renames a file and appends the date to the end of the new file name. For example, I want to rename 'file' to 'file.06/02/2002'. Unfortunatly I can not get this to work. If anyone could help me out I would be really greatfull.

thanks in advance,

Christian Briddon

[Patrick Wallek]

Try using this command in your script:

mv filename filename.`date +%d%m%y`

Note that the ` marks are the backwards tick marks.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi Christain,

If you man the date command, it will guide you through exactly what you need. However, are you sure that you want file.06/02/2002 rather than something like file.06-02-2002. You method will create a subdirectory, is that what you want?

[Victor BERRIDGE]

Hi,
It should work except the for logfiles etc...
In such case why not copy the file, append the date and zeroe your file:
cp -p file file.;
date>>file.;
>file

No garanty, just thoughts...

All the best

Victor

[S.K. Chan]

# mv file file.$(date +%d%m%y)

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

Try this:

# mv /tmp/me /tmp/me.`date +%d_%m_%Y`

Remember to avoid the usual "/" in the date since this would constitute additional directory levels.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Justo Exposito]

Hi Cristian,

As Patrick tell you, you can do:
mv filename filename.`date +%d%m%y`
and then echo `date` >> filename.`date +%d%m%y`

Regards,

Justo.

[Steve Steel · Accepted solution]

Hi


As everybody already said

no / it is not possible.

You can even add time in the date incase you need to rename more than once a day.

cp file file..$(date '+%d-%m-%y_%H:%M:%S')

Shame. But choose another character in the date.

Steve Steel

[Steven Sim Kok Leong]

Hi,

Personally, I prefer

# mv logfile logfile.`date +%Y%m%d`

This makes sorting the logfiles in chronological order much easier.

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong

[Christian Briddon]

Thanks for all your help. I have assigned points to you all.

Cheers,

Christian

[Peter Kloetgen]

Hi Christian,

the solution for your problem is very easy:

mv oldname oldname.`date +%d.%m.%y`

It is better to use dots as separators than slashes because these could be interpreted as pathes. You can use each character as seperator but allways be careful with special characters for the reason the shell could interpret them!

I hope this will help you, best regards

Peter Kloetgen