How to convert date to string in unix shell

Question

i need some help to convert date into a string

i have an sql database running on my unix box which stores the date in str eg:1371509465

i would like to run a query to find if any future dates exist in the database

is there an equivalent function to php's strtotime in shell ?

"php's strtotime in shell" in Google brings some results, have a glance at it — nicolas, May 03 '13 at 00:32
Just to confirm, you are talking about the time-stamp, right? Because a date already _is_ a string. ^^ — Jon, May 03 '13 at 00:32
yes a command in shell to convert Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:51:05 GMT to 1371509465... i looked at strtotime but that doesnt help as I need something similar in shell — user2280769, May 03 '13 at 00:38
yes but when i execute that command i get %s as output. what am i doing wrong ? — user2280769, May 03 '13 at 00:45
someone has posted date -d "2011/11/25 10:00:00" "+%s" to convert it to timestamp however when i paste this in my shell i get an error date: illegal option -- d — user2280769, May 03 '13 at 00:48
What shell are you using? And do you know what version of `date`? — Beta, May 03 '13 at 00:52
ive tried korn shell and bash shell and both give me the same output. how would i find the version of date ? — user2280769, May 03 '13 at 01:01
Since you appear to have a PHP solution, why not call PHP from the shell? — cdarke, May 03 '13 at 10:06

Sam Ruby · Answer 1 · 2013-05-03T01:46:10.760

3

Linux:

date --date='@1371509465'

Mac OS/X:

date -r 1371509465

perl:

perl -e "print scalar localtime(1371509465);"

edited May 03 '13 at 01:46

answered May 03 '13 at 01:02

Sam Ruby

I think i found the answer is to have GNU core utilities installed. is there any other way to convert it to timestamp without having to install core utilities ?? – user2280769 May 03 '13 at 01:27
I don't know about SunOS. Do you have Perl installed? Or another language? – Sam Ruby May 03 '13 at 01:47
I do know about SunOS: up to v 5.10 (solaris 10) - use perl or install GNU coreutils. Solaris 11 has GNU coreutils as a package. IT may already be there. – jim mcnamara May 03 '13 at 03:14

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 06 '13 at 01:40

1

found a way of doing that on solaris date

truss /usr/bin/date 2>&1 | grep time | awk -F" = " '{print $3}'

answered May 06 '13 at 01:40

user2280769

2 Answers2