I have read Mike Lacey's FAQ on cal

[unixkid]

I have read Mike Lacey's FAQ on calulating yesterdays date. I do need to set yesterdays date as a VAR in a script. Can anyone tell me what I might be doing wrong?

yday= 'cat /opt/mlacey.script'

echo $yday
yday -->nothing comes back<--

 

[lfoata]

First , I believe you want to get the output of /opt/mlacey.script in your variable and not the content of the script.
syntax should be :

yday=`/opt/mlacey.script`

If you have a Sun keyboard, make sure you use the ` located to the left of the &quot;1&quot; key.
(use ` not ').

 

[unixkid]

Yes it looks like this will work better but now It appears my problem is Mike's script produces yesterdays date as 10/05/2001 --> I need the year to be two digets. Any advice?

 

[raider2001]

You can either modify the mlacey.script or modify your own. To modify the Perl do the following:

$yr = substr($yr, 2, 2);

To modify your script:
yday = `echo $yday | cut -c 1-6,9-10`

 

[CaKiwi]

Also check out thread80-105565 for a method suggested by cfsalmeida
CaKiwi