YYYY-MM-DD format date in shell script
In bash (>=4.2) it is preferable to use printf's built-in date formatter (part of bash) rather than the external date (usually GNU date).
As such:
# put current date as yyyy-mm-dd in $date# -1 -> explicit current date, bash >=4.3 defaults to current time if not provided# -2 -> start time for shellprintf -v date '%(%Y-%m-%d)T\n' -1 # put current date as yyyy-mm-dd HH:MM:SS in $dateprintf -v date '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T\n' -1 # to print directly remove -v flag, as such:printf '%(%Y-%m-%d)T\n' -1# -> current date printed to terminalIn bash (<4.2):
# put current date as yyyy-mm-dd in $datedate=$(date '+%Y-%m-%d')# put current date as yyyy-mm-dd HH:MM:SS in $datedate=$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')# print current date directlyecho $(date '+%Y-%m-%d')Other available date formats can be viewed from the date man pages (for external non-bash specific command):
man date