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Linux/UNIX Easy date manipulation with yest

Posted by nixcraft on · 10 comments
nixcraft; By nixcraft 		Mail this story
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Sometime it is necessary to run a command or script on the last day of a month. There is old good hack that will decide whether tomorrow is the first day of the next month. All these years I was using *dirty shell script hacks* to create my own date manipulation utilities for backups and other admin task. Thanks to this project no more dirty work. yest is highly recommended tool for all seasoned UNIX admin.

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Comments (10)

rht ·
It's main claim to fame seems to be that it can, in one line, determine if today is the last day of the month.

I think this is just as easy:

[ $(date -d "tomorrow" "+%d") -eq 1 ]

dinotrac ·
Does every date command support that? I just tried it on an AIX 5.2 machine to no avail
jdixon ·
> I just tried it on an AIX 5.2 machine to no avail

Show off. :)
tuxchick2 ·
AIX is also known as Vale of Pain. Showoff, indeed!
SFN ·
It's not working on my Commodore 128 either.
jdixon ·
> It's not working on my Commodore 128 either.

Hmm, I wonder if it would work on OS-9? Well, I doubt I really want to pull my CoCo 3 out to find out, so I guess I'll never know.
jimf ·
I must commend you all on your efforts to recycle old technology. I'm sure mother nature is pleased :D
dinotrac ·
Hey ... AIX 5.2 ain't old, just painful.
tuxchick2 ·
I can't even find the date command on my abacus.
jimf ·
I'm with you TC :)

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