Question

Hello i am using hp unix, i am trying to loop through the last 20 days (with respect to the current date) using a for loop .

for (( c=1; c<=5; c++ ))
do
day$c=$(perl -e 'use POSIX;print strftime "%Y%m%d\n",localtime time-86400*$c;')
done
later do some operations with day$c

issue is that for some strange reason 86400*$c is not executing , can any one point out the mistake ? thanks in advance .

Answer 1

Try different quoting:

day$c=$(perl -e "use POSIX;print strftime qq(%Y%m%d\n),localtime time-86400*$c;")

(I’m not familiar with HPUX, but it looks like $c isn’t getting interpolated by the shell.)

Edit: Or the slightly shorter:

day$c=$(perl -MPOSIX -le "print strftime '%Y%m%d',localtime time-86400*$c;")