Fun Stuff

How To Get / Print Current Date in Unix / Linux Shell Script

Current date in Unix or Linux shell scripting and store it into a shell variable? How do I print the current date using Unix shell script? How can I display the current time in Linux shell script? \

Tutorial details

Difficulty level

Easy

Root privileges

No

Requirements

Linux or Unix

Est. reading time

3 minutes

You need to use the following syntax to print current date and time on screen:ADVERTISEMENT\

date
date +"%FORMAT"
var=$(date)
var=`date`
echo "$var"

Print current date and time in Unix shell script

To store current date and time to a variable, enter: now=$(date) OR now=`date`

Print Current Date in Unix

To print this date either use the printf or echo statement: echo "$now" echo "Current date: $now" OR use the printf command: printf "%s\n" "$now" OR printf "Current date and time in Linux %s\n" "$now"

Getting the current date and time in Linux shell script

You can format and display date using the following syntax:

date +'FORMAT'
 
### mm/dd/yyyy ###
date +'%m/%d/%Y'
 
## Time in 12 hr format ###
date +'%r'
 
## backup dir format ##
backup_dir=$(date +'%m/%d/%Y')
echo "Backup dir for today: /nas04/backups/${backup_dir}"

Finding the current date and time in Linux or Unix using the date command

A list of date command format codes

FORMAT codeDescription

%%

a literal %

%a

locale’s abbreviated weekday name (e.g., Sun)

%A

locale’s full weekday name (e.g., Sunday)

%b

locale’s abbreviated month name (e.g., Jan)

%B

locale’s full month name (e.g., January)

%c

locale’s date and time (e.g., Thu Mar 3 23:05:25 2005)

%C

century; like %Y, except omit last two digits (e.g., 20)

%d

day of month (e.g., 01)

%D

date; same as %m/%d/%y

%e

day of month, space padded; same as %_d

%F

full date; same as %Y-%m-%d

%g

last two digits of year of ISO week number (see %G)

%G

year of ISO week number (see %V); normally useful only with %V

%h

same as %b

%H

hour (00..23)

%I

hour (01..12)

%j

day of year (001..366)

%k

hour, space padded ( 0..23); same as %_H

%l

hour, space padded ( 1..12); same as %_I

%m

month (01..12)

%M

minute (00..59)

%n

a newline

%N

nanoseconds (000000000..999999999)

%p

locale’s equivalent of either AM or PM; blank if not known

%P

like %p, but lower case

%q

quarter of year (1..4)

%r

locale’s 12-hour clock time (e.g., 11:11:04 PM)

%R

24-hour hour and minute; same as %H:%M

%s

seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC

%S

second (00..60)

%t

a tab

%T

time; same as %H:%M:%S

%u

day of week (1..7); 1 is Monday

%U

week number of year, with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)

%V

ISO week number, with Monday as first day of week (01..53)

%w

day of week (0..6); 0 is Sunday

%W

week number of year, with Monday as first day of week (00..53)

%x

locale’s date representation (e.g., 12/31/99)

%X

locale’s time representation (e.g., 23:13:48)

%y

last two digits of year (00..99)

%Y

year

%z

+hhmm numeric time zone (e.g., -0400)

%:z

+hh:mm numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00)

%::z

+hh:mm:ss numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00:00)

%:::z

numeric time zone with : to necessary precision (e.g., -04, +05:30)

%Z

alphabetic time zone abbreviation (e.g., EDT)

Sample shell script to display the current date and time

#!/bin/bash
now="$(date)"
printf "Current date and time %s\n" "$now"
 
now="$(date +'%d/%m/%Y')"
printf "Current date in dd/mm/yyyy format %s\n" "$now"
 
echo "Starting backup at $now, please wait..."
# command to backup scripts goes here
# ...

\

PreviousBashNextGrafana

Last updated