storing todays date into a shell variable

[Wade Chandler]

Mulley, Nikhil wrote:
> Yeah Bill, I do not want to reuse the TODAY variable external to the shell script, But what I want to say is When I echo $TODAY  variable , it is not displaying the Data.
> myprompt$./storedate
> ./storedate: +%m/%d/%y: not found
> myprompt$
> 
> ~Nikhil.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: $Bill Luebkert [mailto:dbecoll at adelphia.net]
> Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 12:37 PM
> To: Mulley, Nikhil
> Cc: redhat-list at redhat.com
> Subject: Re: storing todays date into a shell variable
> 
> 
> Mulley, Nikhil wrote:
> 
> 
>>Hi ,
>>I wanna have a shell script which puts the today's date into a shell
>>variable and later use the Shell Variable for other reasons,
>>I have been using like this..
>> 
>>#!/bin/sh
>>TODAY=date '+%m/%d/%y'
>>echo $TODAY
>>Can any one tell me what could be wrong in this...
> 
> 
> Changing the date in your env will only change it for you and any child
> processes you create.  Once your shell script exits, the TODAY will
> disappear for any new scripts run.
> 

Where you do this:
TODAY=date '+%m/%d/%y'

you need to do this:
TODAY=`date '+%m/%d/%y'`

The back ticks will make the application execute to give you the value 
into TODAY.

I'd go down to the book store and locate either a used or a new book of 
the Linux Programming Bible for  starter, and then maybe look for one 
specifically on shell programming in itself.  I know there are some, but 
can't remember the names.  I've seen them down at Borders.

I found one time using google a shell programming tutorial as well.

Wade