Escape a mm/dd/YY backup date in a file name












5















I have been trying to:



cp file.csv file.$(date +%D).csv


But it fails because the filenames is: file.03/27/19.csv with the slash of separate directories.



And I have been trying again to:



cp file.csv file.$(printf "%q" $(date +%D)).csv


But it still fails.










share|improve this question

























  • You can not set a filename with slash characters: stackoverflow.com/questions/9847288/…

    – tres.14159
    16 hours ago











  • the problem is your use of the date format using the / character. You said it yourself, the shell is seeing them as directory markers. Try one of the many other options available from date. You might be able to get the / escaped so the filename uses the character code (like putting a space in a filename), but that is often problematic.

    – 0xSheepdog
    16 hours ago


















5















I have been trying to:



cp file.csv file.$(date +%D).csv


But it fails because the filenames is: file.03/27/19.csv with the slash of separate directories.



And I have been trying again to:



cp file.csv file.$(printf "%q" $(date +%D)).csv


But it still fails.










share|improve this question

























  • You can not set a filename with slash characters: stackoverflow.com/questions/9847288/…

    – tres.14159
    16 hours ago











  • the problem is your use of the date format using the / character. You said it yourself, the shell is seeing them as directory markers. Try one of the many other options available from date. You might be able to get the / escaped so the filename uses the character code (like putting a space in a filename), but that is often problematic.

    – 0xSheepdog
    16 hours ago
















5












5








5








I have been trying to:



cp file.csv file.$(date +%D).csv


But it fails because the filenames is: file.03/27/19.csv with the slash of separate directories.



And I have been trying again to:



cp file.csv file.$(printf "%q" $(date +%D)).csv


But it still fails.










share|improve this question
















I have been trying to:



cp file.csv file.$(date +%D).csv


But it fails because the filenames is: file.03/27/19.csv with the slash of separate directories.



And I have been trying again to:



cp file.csv file.$(printf "%q" $(date +%D)).csv


But it still fails.







shell filenames date escape-characters slash






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited 20 mins ago









Stéphane Chazelas

312k57589946




312k57589946










asked 16 hours ago









tres.14159tres.14159

3814




3814













  • You can not set a filename with slash characters: stackoverflow.com/questions/9847288/…

    – tres.14159
    16 hours ago











  • the problem is your use of the date format using the / character. You said it yourself, the shell is seeing them as directory markers. Try one of the many other options available from date. You might be able to get the / escaped so the filename uses the character code (like putting a space in a filename), but that is often problematic.

    – 0xSheepdog
    16 hours ago





















  • You can not set a filename with slash characters: stackoverflow.com/questions/9847288/…

    – tres.14159
    16 hours ago











  • the problem is your use of the date format using the / character. You said it yourself, the shell is seeing them as directory markers. Try one of the many other options available from date. You might be able to get the / escaped so the filename uses the character code (like putting a space in a filename), but that is often problematic.

    – 0xSheepdog
    16 hours ago



















You can not set a filename with slash characters: stackoverflow.com/questions/9847288/…

– tres.14159
16 hours ago





You can not set a filename with slash characters: stackoverflow.com/questions/9847288/…

– tres.14159
16 hours ago













the problem is your use of the date format using the / character. You said it yourself, the shell is seeing them as directory markers. Try one of the many other options available from date. You might be able to get the / escaped so the filename uses the character code (like putting a space in a filename), but that is often problematic.

– 0xSheepdog
16 hours ago







the problem is your use of the date format using the / character. You said it yourself, the shell is seeing them as directory markers. Try one of the many other options available from date. You might be able to get the / escaped so the filename uses the character code (like putting a space in a filename), but that is often problematic.

– 0xSheepdog
16 hours ago












1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes


















16














You can't have / (byte 0x2F on ASCII-based systems) in a file name, period.



You can use characters that look like / like (fraction slash), so you could do:



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%D | sed 's|/|⁄|g').csv"


Or with some shells (zsh, bash at least):



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%D | sed $'s|/|u2044|g').csv"


(using sed instead of tr as some tr implementations including GNU tr still don't support multi-byte characters).



But you may run into problems like the file name being rendered differently in locales using a different charset from the one that was in use at the time you created the file (and of course the confusion of users when they see what looks like a slash in a file name).



My advice would be to use the standard non-ambiguous (for most people outside the US, 03/12/18 would be interpreted as the 3rd of December 2018 for instance) YYYY-mm-dd format instead (which also helps wrt sorting):



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).csv"


Which with many date implementations you can shorten to:



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%F).csv"





share|improve this answer


























  • Other characters similar to slash can also be cumbersome to type in terminal.

    – gronostaj
    59 mins ago











Your Answer








StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "106"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});

function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});


}
});














draft saved

draft discarded


















StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2funix.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f509043%2fescape-a-mm-dd-yy-backup-date-in-a-file-name%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);

Post as a guest















Required, but never shown

























1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes








1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes









active

oldest

votes






active

oldest

votes









16














You can't have / (byte 0x2F on ASCII-based systems) in a file name, period.



You can use characters that look like / like (fraction slash), so you could do:



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%D | sed 's|/|⁄|g').csv"


Or with some shells (zsh, bash at least):



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%D | sed $'s|/|u2044|g').csv"


(using sed instead of tr as some tr implementations including GNU tr still don't support multi-byte characters).



But you may run into problems like the file name being rendered differently in locales using a different charset from the one that was in use at the time you created the file (and of course the confusion of users when they see what looks like a slash in a file name).



My advice would be to use the standard non-ambiguous (for most people outside the US, 03/12/18 would be interpreted as the 3rd of December 2018 for instance) YYYY-mm-dd format instead (which also helps wrt sorting):



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).csv"


Which with many date implementations you can shorten to:



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%F).csv"





share|improve this answer


























  • Other characters similar to slash can also be cumbersome to type in terminal.

    – gronostaj
    59 mins ago
















16














You can't have / (byte 0x2F on ASCII-based systems) in a file name, period.



You can use characters that look like / like (fraction slash), so you could do:



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%D | sed 's|/|⁄|g').csv"


Or with some shells (zsh, bash at least):



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%D | sed $'s|/|u2044|g').csv"


(using sed instead of tr as some tr implementations including GNU tr still don't support multi-byte characters).



But you may run into problems like the file name being rendered differently in locales using a different charset from the one that was in use at the time you created the file (and of course the confusion of users when they see what looks like a slash in a file name).



My advice would be to use the standard non-ambiguous (for most people outside the US, 03/12/18 would be interpreted as the 3rd of December 2018 for instance) YYYY-mm-dd format instead (which also helps wrt sorting):



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).csv"


Which with many date implementations you can shorten to:



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%F).csv"





share|improve this answer


























  • Other characters similar to slash can also be cumbersome to type in terminal.

    – gronostaj
    59 mins ago














16












16








16







You can't have / (byte 0x2F on ASCII-based systems) in a file name, period.



You can use characters that look like / like (fraction slash), so you could do:



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%D | sed 's|/|⁄|g').csv"


Or with some shells (zsh, bash at least):



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%D | sed $'s|/|u2044|g').csv"


(using sed instead of tr as some tr implementations including GNU tr still don't support multi-byte characters).



But you may run into problems like the file name being rendered differently in locales using a different charset from the one that was in use at the time you created the file (and of course the confusion of users when they see what looks like a slash in a file name).



My advice would be to use the standard non-ambiguous (for most people outside the US, 03/12/18 would be interpreted as the 3rd of December 2018 for instance) YYYY-mm-dd format instead (which also helps wrt sorting):



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).csv"


Which with many date implementations you can shorten to:



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%F).csv"





share|improve this answer















You can't have / (byte 0x2F on ASCII-based systems) in a file name, period.



You can use characters that look like / like (fraction slash), so you could do:



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%D | sed 's|/|⁄|g').csv"


Or with some shells (zsh, bash at least):



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%D | sed $'s|/|u2044|g').csv"


(using sed instead of tr as some tr implementations including GNU tr still don't support multi-byte characters).



But you may run into problems like the file name being rendered differently in locales using a different charset from the one that was in use at the time you created the file (and of course the confusion of users when they see what looks like a slash in a file name).



My advice would be to use the standard non-ambiguous (for most people outside the US, 03/12/18 would be interpreted as the 3rd of December 2018 for instance) YYYY-mm-dd format instead (which also helps wrt sorting):



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).csv"


Which with many date implementations you can shorten to:



cp file.csv "file.$(date +%F).csv"






share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 23 mins ago

























answered 16 hours ago









Stéphane ChazelasStéphane Chazelas

312k57589946




312k57589946













  • Other characters similar to slash can also be cumbersome to type in terminal.

    – gronostaj
    59 mins ago



















  • Other characters similar to slash can also be cumbersome to type in terminal.

    – gronostaj
    59 mins ago

















Other characters similar to slash can also be cumbersome to type in terminal.

– gronostaj
59 mins ago





Other characters similar to slash can also be cumbersome to type in terminal.

– gronostaj
59 mins ago


















draft saved

draft discarded




















































Thanks for contributing an answer to Unix & Linux Stack Exchange!


  • Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

But avoid



  • Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

  • Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.


To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.




draft saved


draft discarded














StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2funix.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f509043%2fescape-a-mm-dd-yy-backup-date-in-a-file-name%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);

Post as a guest















Required, but never shown





















































Required, but never shown














Required, but never shown












Required, but never shown







Required, but never shown

































Required, but never shown














Required, but never shown












Required, but never shown







Required, but never shown







Popular posts from this blog

Færeyskur hestur Heimild | Tengill | Tilvísanir | LeiðsagnarvalRossið - síða um færeyska hrossið á færeyskuGott ár hjá færeyska hestinum

He _____ here since 1970 . Answer needed [closed]What does “since he was so high” mean?Meaning of “catch birds for”?How do I ensure “since” takes the meaning I want?“Who cares here” meaningWhat does “right round toward” mean?the time tense (had now been detected)What does the phrase “ring around the roses” mean here?Correct usage of “visited upon”Meaning of “foiled rail sabotage bid”It was the third time I had gone to Rome or It is the third time I had been to Rome

Slayer Innehåll Historia | Stil, komposition och lyrik | Bandets betydelse och framgångar | Sidoprojekt och samarbeten | Kontroverser | Medlemmar | Utmärkelser och nomineringar | Turnéer och festivaler | Diskografi | Referenser | Externa länkar | Navigeringsmenywww.slayer.net”Metal Massacre vol. 1””Metal Massacre vol. 3””Metal Massacre Volume III””Show No Mercy””Haunting the Chapel””Live Undead””Hell Awaits””Reign in Blood””Reign in Blood””Gold & Platinum – Reign in Blood””Golden Gods Awards Winners”originalet”Kerrang! Hall Of Fame””Slayer Looks Back On 37-Year Career In New Video Series: Part Two””South of Heaven””Gold & Platinum – South of Heaven””Seasons in the Abyss””Gold & Platinum - Seasons in the Abyss””Divine Intervention””Divine Intervention - Release group by Slayer””Gold & Platinum - Divine Intervention””Live Intrusion””Undisputed Attitude””Abolish Government/Superficial Love””Release “Slatanic Slaughter: A Tribute to Slayer” by Various Artists””Diabolus in Musica””Soundtrack to the Apocalypse””God Hates Us All””Systematic - Relationships””War at the Warfield””Gold & Platinum - War at the Warfield””Soundtrack to the Apocalypse””Gold & Platinum - Still Reigning””Metallica, Slayer, Iron Mauden Among Winners At Metal Hammer Awards””Eternal Pyre””Eternal Pyre - Slayer release group””Eternal Pyre””Metal Storm Awards 2006””Kerrang! Hall Of Fame””Slayer Wins 'Best Metal' Grammy Award””Slayer Guitarist Jeff Hanneman Dies””Bullet-For My Valentine booed at Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards””Unholy Aliance””The End Of Slayer?””Slayer: We Could Thrash Out Two More Albums If We're Fast Enough...””'The Unholy Alliance: Chapter III' UK Dates Added”originalet”Megadeth And Slayer To Co-Headline 'Canadian Carnage' Trek”originalet”World Painted Blood””Release “World Painted Blood” by Slayer””Metallica Heading To Cinemas””Slayer, Megadeth To Join Forces For 'European Carnage' Tour - Dec. 18, 2010”originalet”Slayer's Hanneman Contracts Acute Infection; Band To Bring In Guest Guitarist””Cannibal Corpse's Pat O'Brien Will Step In As Slayer's Guest Guitarist”originalet”Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman Dead at 49””Dave Lombardo Says He Made Only $67,000 In 2011 While Touring With Slayer””Slayer: We Do Not Agree With Dave Lombardo's Substance Or Timeline Of Events””Slayer Welcomes Drummer Paul Bostaph Back To The Fold””Slayer Hope to Unveil Never-Before-Heard Jeff Hanneman Material on Next Album””Slayer Debut New Song 'Implode' During Surprise Golden Gods Appearance””Release group Repentless by Slayer””Repentless - Slayer - Credits””Slayer””Metal Storm Awards 2015””Slayer - to release comic book "Repentless #1"””Slayer To Release 'Repentless' 6.66" Vinyl Box Set””BREAKING NEWS: Slayer Announce Farewell Tour””Slayer Recruit Lamb of God, Anthrax, Behemoth + Testament for Final Tour””Slayer lägger ner efter 37 år””Slayer Announces Second North American Leg Of 'Final' Tour””Final World Tour””Slayer Announces Final European Tour With Lamb of God, Anthrax And Obituary””Slayer To Tour Europe With Lamb of God, Anthrax And Obituary””Slayer To Play 'Last French Show Ever' At Next Year's Hellfst””Slayer's Final World Tour Will Extend Into 2019””Death Angel's Rob Cavestany On Slayer's 'Farewell' Tour: 'Some Of Us Could See This Coming'””Testament Has No Plans To Retire Anytime Soon, Says Chuck Billy””Anthrax's Scott Ian On Slayer's 'Farewell' Tour Plans: 'I Was Surprised And I Wasn't Surprised'””Slayer””Slayer's Morbid Schlock””Review/Rock; For Slayer, the Mania Is the Message””Slayer - Biography””Slayer - Reign In Blood”originalet”Dave Lombardo””An exclusive oral history of Slayer”originalet”Exclusive! Interview With Slayer Guitarist Jeff Hanneman”originalet”Thinking Out Loud: Slayer's Kerry King on hair metal, Satan and being polite””Slayer Lyrics””Slayer - Biography””Most influential artists for extreme metal music””Slayer - Reign in Blood””Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman dies aged 49””Slatanic Slaughter: A Tribute to Slayer””Gateway to Hell: A Tribute to Slayer””Covered In Blood””Slayer: The Origins of Thrash in San Francisco, CA.””Why They Rule - #6 Slayer”originalet”Guitar World's 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists Of All Time”originalet”The fans have spoken: Slayer comes out on top in readers' polls”originalet”Tribute to Jeff Hanneman (1964-2013)””Lamb Of God Frontman: We Sound Like A Slayer Rip-Off””BEHEMOTH Frontman Pays Tribute To SLAYER's JEFF HANNEMAN””Slayer, Hatebreed Doing Double Duty On This Year's Ozzfest””System of a Down””Lacuna Coil’s Andrea Ferro Talks Influences, Skateboarding, Band Origins + More””Slayer - Reign in Blood””Into The Lungs of Hell””Slayer rules - en utställning om fans””Slayer and Their Fans Slashed Through a No-Holds-Barred Night at Gas Monkey””Home””Slayer””Gold & Platinum - The Big 4 Live from Sofia, Bulgaria””Exclusive! Interview With Slayer Guitarist Kerry King””2008-02-23: Wiltern, Los Angeles, CA, USA””Slayer's Kerry King To Perform With Megadeth Tonight! - Oct. 21, 2010”originalet”Dave Lombardo - Biography”Slayer Case DismissedArkiveradUltimate Classic Rock: Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman dead at 49.”Slayer: "We could never do any thing like Some Kind Of Monster..."””Cannibal Corpse'S Pat O'Brien Will Step In As Slayer'S Guest Guitarist | The Official Slayer Site”originalet”Slayer Wins 'Best Metal' Grammy Award””Slayer Guitarist Jeff Hanneman Dies””Kerrang! Awards 2006 Blog: Kerrang! Hall Of Fame””Kerrang! Awards 2013: Kerrang! Legend”originalet”Metallica, Slayer, Iron Maien Among Winners At Metal Hammer Awards””Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards””Bullet For My Valentine Booed At Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards””Metal Storm Awards 2006””Metal Storm Awards 2015””Slayer's Concert History””Slayer - Relationships””Slayer - Releases”Slayers officiella webbplatsSlayer på MusicBrainzOfficiell webbplatsSlayerSlayerr1373445760000 0001 1540 47353068615-5086262726cb13906545x(data)6033143kn20030215029