How To Get / Print Current Date in Unix / Linux Shell Script

Current date in Unix or Linux shell scripting and store it into a shell variable? How do I print the current date using Unix shell script? How can I display the current time in Linux shell script?
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Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Easy
Root privileges	No
Requirements	Linux or Unix
Est. reading time	3 minutes

You need to use the following syntax to print current date and time on screen:

date
date +"%FORMAT"
var=$(date)
var=`date`
echo "$var"

Print current date and time in Unix shell script

To store current date and time to a variable, enter:
now=$(date)
OR
now=`date`

Print Current Date in Unix

To print this date either use the printf or echo statement:
echo "$now"
echo "Current date: $now"
OR use the printf command:
printf "%s\n" "$now"
OR
printf "Current date and time in Linux %s\n" "$now"

Getting the current date and time in Linux shell script

You can format and display date using the following syntax:

date +'FORMAT'

### mm/dd/yyyy
date +'%m/%d/%Y'

### Time in 12 hr format ###
date +'%r'

## backup dir format ##
backup_dir=$(date +'%m/%d/%Y')
echo "Backup dir for today: /nas04/backups/${backup_dir}"


Finding the current date and time in Linux or Unix using the date command

A list of date command format codes

FORMAT code	Description
%%	a literal %
%a	locale’s abbreviated weekday name (e.g., Sun)
%A	locale’s full weekday name (e.g., Sunday)
%b	locale’s abbreviated month name (e.g., Jan)
%B	locale’s full month name (e.g., January)
%c	locale’s date and time (e.g., Thu Mar 3 23:05:25 2005)
%C	century; like %Y, except omit last two digits (e.g., 20)
%d	day of month (e.g., 01)
%D	date; same as %m/%d/%y
%e	day of month, space padded; same as %_d
%F	full date; same as %Y-%m-%d
%g	last two digits of year of ISO week number (see %G)
%G	year of ISO week number (see %V); normally useful only with %V
%h	same as %b
%H	hour (00..23)
%I	hour (01..12)
%j	day of year (001..366)
%k	hour, space padded ( 0..23); same as %_H
%l	hour, space padded ( 1..12); same as %_I
%m	month (01..12)
%M	minute (00..59)
%n	a newline
%N	nanoseconds (000000000..999999999)
%p	locale’s equivalent of either AM or PM; blank if not known
%P	like %p, but lower case
%q	quarter of year (1..4)
%r	locale’s 12-hour clock time (e.g., 11:11:04 PM)
%R	24-hour hour and minute; same as %H:%M
%s	seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
%S	second (00..60)
%t	a tab
%T	time; same as %H:%M:%S
%u	day of week (1..7); 1 is Monday
%U	week number of year, with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)
%V	ISO week number, with Monday as first day of week (01..53)
%w	day of week (0..6); 0 is Sunday
%W	week number of year, with Monday as first day of week (00..53)
%x	locale’s date representation (e.g., 12/31/99)
%X	locale’s time representation (e.g., 23:13:48)
%y	last two digits of year (00..99)
%Y	year
%z	+hhmm numeric time zone (e.g., -0400)
%😒	+hh:mm numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00)
%:😒	+hh:mm:ss numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00:00)
%::😒	numeric time zone with : to necessary precision (e.g., -04, +05:30)
%Z	alphabetic time zone abbreviation (e.g., EDT)

Sample shell script to display the current date and time

## !/bin/bash
now="$(date)"
printf "Current date and time %s\n" "$now"

now="$(date +'%d/%m/%Y')"
printf "Current date in dd/mm/yyyy format %s\n" "$now"

echo "Starting backup at $now, please wait..."
## command to backup scripts goes here
## ...

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