getting dates in a script

farkus888 · 02-22-2007, 12:16 AM

I need to get the dates of the previous 7 days inside a script. this is on a solaris 5.8 machine and the date needs to be in the form yyyymmdd. questions welcome... I'll try to get right back to you because this is for work.

druuna · 02-22-2007, 01:09 AM

Hi,

Here are some tips/links.

This could be the best/easiest solution to start with (tested on sun box):

Yesterdays date:
DATE_STAMP=`TZ=CST+24 date +%Y%m%d`

Two days ago:
DATE_STAMP=`TZ=CST+48 date +%Y%m%d`

Also take a look here (www.unix.com) for some interesting links concerning date/time.

Hope this gets you going again.

doc.nice · 02-22-2007, 03:35 AM

for bash, you can use this:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
BACK=0
while [ $BACK -lt 7 ]; do
  BACK=$(($BACK + 1))
  date -d "-$BACK days" "+%Y%m%d"
done

date -d shows the date given in the argument, not "now". But date is powerful, it understands "-7 days", "+1 week" and so on

farkus888 · 02-22-2007, 04:10 AM

the shell situation here is frustrating to put it mildly. everyone here uses bash, all of our scripts are to be written in sh, and all of our machines default to csh. and there are no exceptions to ever be made to any of the rules. looks like the modifying TZ will work though, thanks for everyones input.

jlliagre · 02-22-2007, 04:13 AM

replying to doc.nice:

That's not a bash feature, but a GNU date one, so you'll need to install it on Solaris should you want to use it.

jlliagre · 02-22-2007, 04:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by farkus888

the shell situation here is frustrating to put it mildly. everyone here uses bash

That is a common situation, especially from users with a Linux background.

Quote:

, all of our scripts are to be written in sh

Thas is a big mistake, shell scripts should be written in a POSIX compliant shell, /bin/sh is a legacy one, not compliant.
Better use ksh or perhaps /usr/xpg4/bin/sh

Quote:

and all of our machines default to csh.

What do you mean defaults ? When you create a new account, the shell has to be csh ? That's a quite obsolete policy.

farkus888 · 02-22-2007, 04:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlliagre

That is a common situation, especially from users with a Linux background.

Thas is a big mistake, shell scripts should be written in a POSIX compliant shell, /bin/sh is a legacy one, not compliant.
Better use ksh or perhaps /usr/xpg4/bin/sh

What do you mean defaults ? When you create a new account, the shell has to be csh ? That's a quite obsolete policy.

like I said, its frustrating to deal with but those are the rules here and I get the ruler across the knuckles every time I question it.