Question

I have a tool which requires the time in hex format.

Suppose if date -d "Thu Sep 15 09:13:05 UTC 2011" +%s -u gives the time in seconds as 1316077985, the hex value of 1316077985 which is 4E71C1A1 should be found and it should be given as input to the tool as

/usr/bin/mytool 0xA1 0xC1 0x71 0x4E.

How can do this in shell script if the time in seconds is available as input?

Answer 1

Something like this should work for you:

hex=$(printf '%X' 1316077985)
/usr/bin/mytool  0x${hex:6:2} 0x${hex:4:2} 0x${hex:2:2} 0x${hex:0:2}