bash: convert iso dates to d:m:y

Question

I have a program, which produces output like this (iso format dates):

2010-06-04 15:48:17 +0200
2010-06-04 12:34:39 +0200
2010-02-01 14:02:44 +0200
2010-06-04 12:21:19 +0200
2010-06-04 12:21:04 +0200
2009-05-02 15:38:14 +0200
2009-03-02 15:38:09 +0200
2010-06-04 14:45:00 +0200
...

How do I convert the output to unique, sorted dates:

And then, on each unique date run: mycommand --withargs [yyyy-mm-dd]?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 04 '10 at 18:57

3

You can do the following:

$ <iso_command> | awk '{print $1}' | sort -u | xargs -n 1 mycommand --withargs

answered Jun 04 '10 at 18:57

Tekhne

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Thanks, `man awk` was what I needed :) – takeshin Jun 04 '10 at 19:49
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Watch out for timezones with this. If you get data that has multiple time zones you may have problems. – Zoredache Jun 04 '10 at 20:00
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I would use something like: while read line; do date +%Y-%m-%d -d "$line"; done date can parse many formats and also take care of the timezones – Daniel Jun 04 '10 at 20:05

Zoredache · Answer 2 · 2010-06-04T19:58:56.470

Using a simple text parsing tool may not be the best method if you are ever going to be getting data from altnerate time zones.

It may be better to past the formated string to the date command and then use it reformat however you like. A simple awk or cut could return results that are not entirely accurate. For example if you where in PST but the data you got was in UTC the date would be off by one 7 out of 24 hours during the data.

$echo '2010-06-04 15:48:17 +0200' | xargs -I var_d date --date='var_d' +%Y-%m-%d
2010-06-04

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 04 '10 at 19:01

0

cut -c 1-10 -|sort -ru

or

cut -c 1-10 /path/to/myfile |sort -ru

answered Jun 04 '10 at 19:01

Chris Lercher

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... and complete that with `xargs ...` from Tekhne's answer! – Chris Lercher Jun 04 '10 at 19:05

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 13 '10 at 23:42

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Assuming date from GNU coreutils,

program > dates
while read isodate; do
    ymd=$(date -d "$isodate" +'%Y-%m-%d')
    mycommand --withargs "$ymd"
done < dates

answered Nov 13 '10 at 23:42

ephemient

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bash: convert iso dates to d:m:y

4 Answers4