UNIX date formatting feature - printf style

[Danny Fang]

Hi,

I’m attempting to use the ‘date’ command with the C-style formatting to format my variables:

Prefix=20
Year=06
Month=MM
Day=DD

I’d like to format it using the C language style format i.e.


printf("%02d%02d%02d%02d" $prefix $year $month $day)

and also in the following format:
printf("%02d%02d-%02d-%02d" $prefix $year $month $day)

I’ve tried using the “- - date “ option:
mz[tmp]$ date --date="20060918"
Mon Sep 18 00:00:00 SGT 2006

mz[tmp]$ date --date="2006-09-18"
Mon Sep 18 00:00:00 SGT 2006

Could anyone show me how I can set the date formatting (specifying the number of digit formats), using ‘date’ utility, or even any other utilities?

Thanks
Danny

[uadm26 · Accepted solution]

Hi, Danny

today=`date +%Y-%m-%d`

Good Luck,
Joel

[Peter Godron]

Danny,
can you please clarify:
Are you trying to update the date display to a certain format ( Display Formatted Date Using Local Language Conversion )
or
are you trying to display the date in a certain format ( date "+DATE: %m/%d/%y%nTIME: %H:%M:%S" )

See man for both

[Peter Nikitka]

Hi,

it seems to me, that you are using GNU-date. Using the option '--date' does not have any influence of the output style, it just changes the input date+time. Use the well-known %-modifier (see 'man stftime') to change the output format:

date --date="" '+%Y%m%d'

mfG Peter