Shell cmd "date" without new line in the end

Question

I want to output a line of date using date command, but it's end with a "\n" which I don't need it, currently, I use:

echo -n `date +"[%m-%d %H:%M:%S]"`

or

date +"[%m-%d %H:%M:%S]"|tr -d "\n"

Are there any built-in parameter for "date" to do that?

@Bamboomy Or the new user should specify in a comment somewhere, how all the answers are falling short, in case he's looking for something that none of us are considerating. — L. D. James, May 01 '18 at 11:30

gj13 · Answer 1 · 2018-02-08T11:51:40.283

32

No there isn't. You need another command like echo -n, printf or tr. You could put a script somewhere in your PATH (eg. /usr/bin/) and make it executable with chmod +x /usr/bin/mydate

script:

#!/bin/sh
echo -n `date +"[%m-%d %H:%M:%S]"`

or use an alias.

alias mydate="echo -n `date +"[%m-%d %H:%M:%S]"`"

edited Feb 08 '18 at 11:51

answered Jan 22 '16 at 09:35

gj13

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score 28 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 01 '19 at 00:33

28

Bash printf does not require date to work:

printf '%(%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T'

will output the current time without a newline.

answered Feb 01 '19 at 00:33

radio_tech

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For older bash versions you have to add "-1" value at the end. Like this: `printf '%(%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1` – Seweryn Niemiec Feb 09 '22 at 12:58

score 17 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 07 '18 at 01:55

17

You can use printf. It doesn't add new line symbol:

$ printf `date "+%d.%m.%Y"`
22.01.2016$

edited Feb 07 '18 at 01:55

xxfelixxx

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answered Jan 22 '16 at 13:10

Dmitry Tabakov

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You should prefer to use a format string for printf: `printf '%s' "$(date "+%d.%m.%Y")"` – glenn jackman Feb 23 '19 at 18:27

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 23 '18 at 10:13

You are going to want to replace the newline with some form of space so output doesn't run together.

Full example which can be used to monitor peak size of a workspace:

nohup watch -t -n 60 "(date '+%F/%H:%M:%S' | tr '\n' '\t'; du -sh /folder/to/monitor/) >> workspace.log" &

Don't forget to kill this as the file would grow indefinitely.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 13 '23 at 05:39

I guess you want to add something after date in each line. Instead of using date without EOL you can do it other way around. Inside date command you can add ouput of any other command by using $() or backticks ``. Final output is the same, date and then something in each line.

For example:

date "+%F %T $(echo 123)"

will print date and then 123 in same line.

Shell cmd "date" without new line in the end

5 Answers5

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