Command substitution

Question

I would like to create a script on SUSE Enterprise Linux, it first asks for a string (representing a date) and then search for all files in a certain directory which contains the string in its filename. If there is an empty input, todays date should be used.

I now have this:

read -p "Send files from date (MM-DD-YYYY) : " fromdate
if [[ -z ${fromdate// } ]]
then
    echo "Empty input"
    fromdate=$(date +%m-%d-%Y)
fi
echo "Input: $fromdate"
cd /path/to/directory
while IFS= read -r -d '' file ; do
echo "$file"
done < <(find . -maxdepth 1 -name "*$fromdate*" -print0)

When I enter a date, it works fine, for empty input, I get an error:

fromdate: command not found

The input is still empty, and all files are displayed. What could be my mistake? Should I use the 'let'-command?

Answer 1

This works for me (but on CentOS 7.1). Did I miss something?

read -p "Send files from date (MM-DD-YYYY) : " fromdate
if [[ -z ${fromdate// } ]]
then
    echo "Empty input"
    fromdate=$(date +%m-%d-%Y)
fi
echo "Input: $fromdate"

find /path/to/directory -maxdepth 1 -name "*$fromdate*"