How to append current date and timestamp to filename in shell script

Last updated on July 14, 2020 by Dan Nanni

Sometimes it is useful to include current date or timestamp information in file names, especially when files are generated on a regular basis such as monthly/daily/hourly for backup, logging and other archiving purposes. Here is how you can format current date and time, and append formatted string to a file name, in a shell script.

A linux command line tool called date allows you to format the display of current time as you want. So you can use this command in a shell script. The syntax of date command is shown as follows.

$ date +"FORMAT"

To include current time in second precision:

now=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d-%S")
filename="my_program.$now.log"
# example filename: my_program.2012-01-23-47.log

To include current timestamp in nanosecond precision:

now=$(date +"%Y.%m.%d.%S.%N")
filename="my_program.$now.log"
# example filename: my_program.2013.01.23.44.364617000.log

To include current timestamp in epoch (i.e., number of seconds elapsed since 1970-1-1):

now=$(date +"%s")
filename="my_program.$now.log"
# example filename: my_program.1358995092.log

If you find this tutorial helpful, I recommend you check out the series of bash shell scripting tutorials provided by Xmodulo.

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