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Full Discussion: Get date from a line of output
Top Forums UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers Get date from a line of output Post 302980933 by bakunin on Monday 5th of September 2016 06:06:59 AM
Old 09-05-2016
As a general remark: "a date" is not a standardised (or standardisable) data format. You can search (as RudiC suggested) for this regex, but be aware that it doesn't search for "a date" but for two digits, followed by a slash, followed by two more digits, followed by another slash, followed by four more digits.

In most cases, a string matching that will be a date indeed, but it might be something else either. Further more, this: 1/1/2016 is perhaps a date too, but wouldn't be found by the regex. On the other hand you could remove the restrictions RudiC has perhaps put in for safety and simplify the regexp to:

Code:
grep '[0-9][0-9]*/[0-9][0-9]*/[0-9][0-9][0-9]*'

but in this case it would find a "date" in the following sample text, which denotes the common way in Austria to tell the street number, apartment number and the floor on which it is located:

Code:
i live in apartment number 10 on the second floor in thisstreet number 15: 
Adress: 12345 Somewhere, Thisstreet 15/2/10

Bottom line is: you will have to be careful to watch if what you place as restrictions to dates will lead to all the correct things being found and all the incorrect ones being thrown out. But this is a slippery slope and there is no final algorithm which separates all "dates" from everything "not a date".

I hope this helps.

bakunin
 

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LEARN ABOUT V7

dp

DP(8)                                                                [nmh-1.5]                                                               DP(8)

NAME

       dp - parse dates 822-style

SYNOPSIS

       /usr/lib/mh/dp [-form formatfile] [-format string] [-width columns] [-version] [-help] dates ...

DESCRIPTION

       Dp  is  a  program that parses dates according to the ARPA Internet standard.  It also understands many non-standard formats, such as those
       produced by TOPS-20 sites and some UNIX sites using ctime(3).  It is useful for seeing how nmh will interpret a date.

       The dp program treats each argument as a single date, and prints the date out in the official 822-format.  Hence, it  is  usually  best  to
       enclose each argument in quotes for the shell.

       To  override  the  output  format  used by dp, the -format string or -format file switches are used.  This permits individual fields of the
       address to be extracted with ease.  The string is simply a format string and the file is simply a format file.  See  mh-format(5)  for  the
       details.

       Here is the default format string used by dp:

            %<(nodate{text})error: %{text}%|%(putstr(pretty{text}))%>

       which  says  that  if an error was detected, print the error, a `:', and the date in error.  Otherwise, output the 822-proper format of the
       date.

FILES

       $HOME/.mh_profile          The user profile

PROFILE COMPONENTS

       None

SEE ALSO

       ap(8), Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages (RFC-822)

DEFAULTS

       `-format' default as described above
       `-width' default to the width of the terminal

CONTEXT

       None

BUGS

       The argument to the -format switch must be interpreted as a single token by the shell that invokes dp.  Therefore, one must  usually  place
       the argument to this switch inside quotes.

MH.6.8                                                             11 June 2012                                                              DP(8)
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