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Shell Script: How to append TimeStamp to file name?

Updated on by App   9

Mac Shell Script Append Date to File Name

I need to create a shell script that appends a timestamp to existing file. I mainly use Mac OS X for development. Wanted to create the same on Mac Terminal.

Here are some basics on date command.

NAME

date -- display or set date and time

SYNOPSIS
date [-ju] [-r seconds] [-v [+|-]val[ymwdHMS]] ... [+output_fmt]
date [-jnu] [[[mm]dd]HH]MM[[cc]yy][.ss]
date [-jnu] -f input_fmt new_date [+output_fmt]
date [-d dst] [-t minutes_west]

Samples:

bash-3.2$ date
Wed Sep 26 19:29:10 PDT 2012
bash-3.2$ date +"%Y/%m/%d"
2012/09/26

Script to append date stamp to file:

#!/bin/sh

file_name=test_files.txt

current_time=$(date "+%Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S")
echo "Current Time : $current_time"

new_fileName=$file_name.$current_time
echo "New FileName: " "$new_fileName"

cp $file_name $new_fileName
echo "You should see new file generated with timestamp on it.."

Please let me know if you have some ready to use shell script and want to share with Crunchify readers.

Happy coding and keep visiting!

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Reader Interactions

  9 Comments...

  2. karan says

    i have a log file name SodCheckddmmyyyy.log format (date is included in it)

    how to grep in this particular date file file among the other date files

    Reply

  3. karan says

    i have a log file name SodCheckddmmyyyy.log format (date is included in it)

    how to grep in this particular date file file among the other date files

    Reply

  4. Nick Fenwick says

    In case it’s useful to anyone, I just modified a bash script of mine to first move the file away to a new filename prepended with the file’s last modified date.

    OUTFILE=/tmp/productdump.sql.gz
    # if OUTFILE exists, first move it to a file prepended with its mod date
    # note: these will build up, if not removed.
    if [[ -f $OUTFILE ]] ; then
    # get file mod date (stripping off time)
    OLDFILEDATE=$(stat -c %y $OUTFILE | cut -f 1 -d ' ')
    # build a new filename prepended with the date by replacing '/tmp/' with '/tmp/'
    NEWNAME=${OUTFILE//tmp///tmp/$OLDFILEDATE}
    echo Moving old $OUTFILE to $NEWNAME.
    # note: -p preserves the mode,ownership,timestamps
    cp -p $OUTFILE $NEWNAME
    rm $OUTFILE
    fi
    .. go ahead with creating the new OUTFILE..

    Obviously you probably want to modify this somewhat but I found the ‘stat -c %y’ and ‘cp -p’ useful.

    Reply

    • App Shah says

      Thanks Nick. I’ll verify this today and will add it to tutorial if no issue.

      Happy coding and keep visiting.

      Reply

      • Nick Fenwick says

        Cheers 🙂

        By the way, my shell scripting is not amazing, there are possibly some general improvements you could make, for example according to https ://unix .stackexchange .com/questions/306111/what-is-the-difference-between-the-bash-operators-vs-vs-vs I don’t need the double brackets in the -f test .. single brackets would work .. though perhaps it’s a matter of personal preference. I generally use double brackets in every case, just because it always works 🙂

        Reply

    • App Shah says

      Hi Suresh – append_date.sh is already at the bottom of the post. Let me know if you are facing any issue.

      Reply

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