Issue echoing variables in bash script

Question

I was working on a script to echo the date upon login in a different format but once I get down to echoing the result, it gives me a jumbled up output. I've been searching online to see if I'm calling the variables wrong or using wrong ticks somewhere but no luck. I even have echoed each individual variable before and after the problem echo and they echo the proper date/month/day of week. As my script is right now, it only puts out ". which is a Thu" when run. Also, I've been executing it with "sh ./datescript.sh" Any help/additional resources would be appreciated. Thanks!

My Script:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
date=`date`     #NOTE: date being used in two different ways
day=`echo ${date} | cut -f1 -d' '`
month=`echo ${date} | cut -f2 -d' '`
date=`echo ${date} | cut -f3 -d' '`
echo "Today is the ${date}th day of ${month}, which is a ${day}."
echo $day
echo $month
echo $date

Alright... I'm going to try it through vi instead and see if it works. I was writing it in Notepad++ and copying over via ftp. — Xattle
– Xattle, Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 16:25
@Xattle - you may want to run dos2unix on it before attempting to run it — jimm-cl
– jimm-cl, Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 16:26
@Xattle that is indeed your problem. Notepad++ by default will use Windows new line characters CRLF, and bash won't interpret those properly as it's looking for UNIX new line characters LF only. In notepad++ you can click Edit --> EOL Conversion --> UNIX/OSX Format. — SnakeDoc
– SnakeDoc, Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 16:30
Why not just date +"Today is the %-dth day of %B, which is a %A."? This is unnecessarily complicated... — twalberg
– twalberg, Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 19:28

choroba · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-04 16:26:40Z

2

I can replicate the behaviour if I add $'\r' at the end of month and date assignment lines. Seems like Win/*nix line ending issue.

Run dos2unix or fromdos on the script to fix it.

answered Dec 4, 2014 at 16:26

choroba

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Xattle Over a year ago

It was a Win/*nix issue. Once I tried it through vi, it worked fine. Switching to UTF-8 encoding also ended up working.

Dave McNeill · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-04 16:28:27Z

2

#!/usr/bin/env bash

day=`date +%A`
month=`date +%B`
date=`date +%-d`

echo "Today is the ${date}th day of ${month}, which is a ${day}."
echo $day
echo $month
echo $date

answered Dec 4, 2014 at 16:28

Dave McNeill

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