General Question

rexpresso's avatar

In a *nix shell how can I touch a file naming it with the system's current UNIX timestamp?

Asked by rexpresso (922points) November 14th, 2010

I want to do a slightly more complex command, but from you I would just like enough help so I can issue a command like this:

$timestamp = unix_timestamp; touch $timestamp

Of course I’m such a newbie that obviously I’m wrong in this command. But I think you get my idea. Any help is precious!

Thanks!

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2 Answers

sferik's avatar

touch `date +%s`

Backticks (on the same key as the tilde, next to 1/!) are really powerful. They work by evaling the contained command and then substituting the output.

You can do just about anything on the shell in a single line using backticks, pipes, and xargs.

Learn ‘em, love ‘em.

sferik (6121points)“Great Answer” (4points) Flag as…
rexpresso's avatar

Absolutely fantastic! Thanks @sferik

rexpresso (922points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…

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