UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Doubt #1
I have a program that I want the user to input date. When the user inputs the date, is it able to format it to system date dd-mm-yyy and then echo the value into a text file?

Doubt#2
If the above is not going to work, I tried to have the system date appear in the user input field and when the user enters to continue, the date shown can be echoed into a text file? The date command that I used is "date +%d-%m-%y".

My codes are something lk this:

Code:

echo -en "Date Purchased: "
read datePurchased
echo "${datePurchased} >> a.txt

Please do help me if you know of a way as I just started learning bash shell programming and its really difficult!!

Thanks in advance !

date | read datePurchased

echo "$datePurchased" >> a.txt

hi amitranjansahu

have tried your codes.. i don't think it works at my end..

whats the error u r getting can you post that

as i understand you want to redirect the system date to a file.Pls Correct me if i am wrong.

in my solaris machine here is the out put of the code.

----------
amit@server11 ars/amit1 $ date | read datePurchased
amit@server11 ars/amit1 $ echo "$datePurchased"
Fri Apr 24 11:40:54 MEST 2009

What format is the date which the user will type?
Please give examples.

The user are free to type in any format but it is advisable to type in "ddmmyyyy". I think there needs to be a function or some lines of code to format the user input date to be similar to the system date.

You can use zenity to input a date in a graphical box with the --calendar switch. Users like graphical boxes and zenity does a very nice job of extending the possibilities of shell scripts.