here is my code I'm backing up a directory with
I call the script like this.

[bash#]./scriptname directory

<start code>
#!/bin/sh
echo "backing up $1 directory to remote storage"
echo "compressing $1 to $1.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M).tgz" <- I want this filename saved in a variable so that it can be called later as $filename
tar czf $1.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M).tgz $1
echo "done."
echo "moving $filename to /var/ftp/backup/web"
./mv
echo "done."
exit $?
<end code>

I would just use the $1.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M).tgz piece agian to display the filename, but it takes longer than a minute to compress the directory. So after it compress's the directory the filename displayed would be different than the real filename.

I doubt it is a very hard thing to do I'm just not that experienced with scripting yet, any help would be apreciated.

Thnx
Will

your she-bang line -- why isn't is #!/bin/bash?

itsme@dreams:~/scripts$ cat time.sh
#!/bin/bash

filename=`date +%Y%m%d-%H%M`.tgz
echo $filename
sleep 60
echo $filename
itsme@dreams:~/scripts$ ./time.sh
20041101-1232.tgz
20041101-1232.tgz

Man you guys are fast. I don't know why I didn't think of the first posts answer! declaring the current time as a variable from the get go was a perfect solution.
Thanks to all.