Question

I have a script that outputs with timestamps but I can’t manage to have the date evaluate when the specific line is reached; all of the stamps have the time of the script’s first call, that is, they’re all the same, even though the script takes hours to complete.

I’m trying this:

TIMESTAMP=`date +"%H:%M:%S --"`
...

eval "echo $TIMESTAMP Starting backup"
...
eval "echo $TIMESTAMP Doing something here"

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Aliases are handy, easy expansion in an echo line. E.g.:

#!/bin/bash

alias now='date +%T'
echo $(now)
sleep 10
echo `now`
sleep 1
echo $(now) My Log line

Yielding:

15:13:56
15:14:06
15:14:07 My Log line