What is date/time format? and how to set date variable in shell script?

Discussion
#1

Can any one help me understand the date and time format and setting date as variable in shell script ?Help me to understand below one:

date=`date +"%Y-%m-%d"`;
date1=`date +"%Y%m%d"`;
CurrentHour=`date +"%H"`;
Previous=`expr $(date +"%H") - 1`;

Any help ?

#2 
date=`date +"%Y-%m-%d"`;

This will give you the current date in this format YYYY-MM-DD.

date1=`date +"%Y%m%d"`;

This will give you the current date also but in this format YYYYMMDD *notice there are no dashes.

CurrentHour=`date +"%H"`;

As mentioned in the variable name, this will give the current hour (24-hour type)

Previous=`expr $(date +"%H") - 1`;

This will give you the current hour minus 1, for example if the current hour is 5, this will give you 4.

Check this out for more date variables:

2 Likes
#3

Thank you ,able to understand clearly ,if possible let me know if any other possibilities.

#4

You can get (year-month-day) from date as follows:

DATE=date +%Y-%m-%d

Then get (year-month-day hour:minute:second) from date as follows:

DATE=date +%Y-%m-%d:%H:%M:%S

You can also get more options from here

#5

There are unlimited number of possibilities, you can do any combinations you want with all the formats available, please check the table from the link I’ve provided.

Good luck :smile: