How do I append the UNIX command date to an echo statement

Question

Basically I want to have the terminal output a message followed by the date and time, like "Hi, today is -dateandtime-".

So echo can accomplish the first bit, and date can accomplish the last, but only separately, how can I put them together (in one command) so they output together.

Like

echo hello there

-new command-

date

Does it, but not in one line. Is pipelining the answer?

score 98 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 02 '12 at 00:18

98

This will do it:

 echo "Hi, today is $(date)"

answered Feb 02 '12 at 00:18

jlliagre

29,783
6
61
72

score 18 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 13 '20 at 15:04

18

Date time will take in an arbitrary format string.

> date +"Hi, today is - %a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
  Hi, today is - Thu Feb 2 03:28: CET 2012

edited Sep 13 '20 at 15:04

Ernesto Iser

2,524
2
13
18

answered Feb 02 '12 at 00:19

zellio

31,308
1
42
61

score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 02 '12 at 00:19

6

echo Hello there, today is `date`

You can also format the output of date using modifiers like:

echo Hello there, today is `date +%D`

See man date for a complete list of the modifiers.

answered Feb 02 '12 at 00:19

Josepanaero

136
5

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 02 '12 at 00:21

4

Backtick will do the trick:

echo "Hi, today is" `date`

answered Feb 02 '12 at 00:21

ultra

131
3

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 20 '15 at 17:54

2

For this particular problem, mimisbrunnr's solution is the right way to go. For the general question of how to append data to an echo, some common techniques are:

$ echo 'Hi, today is ' | tr -d '\012'; date
Hi, today is Wed Feb  1 18:11:40 MST 2012
$ echo -n 'Hi, today is '; date
Hi, today is Wed Feb  1 18:11:43 MST 2012
$ printf 'Hi, today is '; date
Hi, today is Wed Feb  1 18:11:48 MST 2012

edited Jul 20 '15 at 17:54

jlliagre

29,783
6
61
72

answered Feb 02 '12 at 01:02

William Pursell

204,365
48
270
300

How do I append the UNIX command date to an echo statement

5 Answers5