Putting variables in everyday used commands

tearinox · 04-28-2004, 09:41 PM

What I'm trying to do is make rename a file to the current date. What I tried to do is:

Code:

$ date
Wed Apr 28 19:38:13 PDT 2004
$ mv file.png $date

You can see what I'm trying to do there. But it's not working out so well. Can someone help me out here.

crabboy · 04-28-2004, 10:38 PM

Couple things wrong here. First is the date contains spaces, you want the spaces in the filename? In the Windows world it's ok, but in UNIX they difficult to deal with and not used often. Second is you are trying to use the $date variable when it has never been set.

Set a variable like:

Code:

date=`date`

But you should probably do something like this:

Code:

DATE=`date +'%Y%m%d'`
mv file.png file.png.$DATE

This will move the file to: file.png.20040428

It has no spaces, and it sorts well with file of the same name.

Hope this helps.

tearinox · 04-29-2004, 05:08 PM

Nice! Thanks muchas gracias crabboy!
I have modified it a little bit to say

Code:

DATE=`date +'%Y_%m_%d_%l:%M'`
mv file.png %DATE.png

Plus I have this now bound to the screenshot button so it will create a different screenshot everytime I press the bound button

Thanks for the help in getting me started!!