What is the date command line corresponding to var=“$(date +”%x %r %Z“)”

Question

If I run the following command line on Ubuntu:

var="$(date +"%x %r %Z")"
echo var

I can get the desired output. But If I just run

date +%x %r %Z

I will be given errors:

date: extra operand ‘%r’

Try 'date --help' for more information.

So what is the date command corresponding to var="$(date +"%x %r %Z")"? Thanks.

Answer 1

You did not copy exactly the same command. You wrote date +"%x %r %Z" inside parentheses. This just work well outside. Otherwise, date has three arguments (+%x, %r and %Z), rather than one (+%x %r %Z).

From man bash :

When using the $(command) form, all characters between the parentheses make up the command; none are treated specially.
Command substitutions may be nested.

Parentheses are matched before evaluating the content, so the command is not split as $(date +%x, %r, %Z) .

Note :
You forgot the $ of echo $var.

Answer 2

So what is the date command corresponding to var="$(date +"%x %r %Z")"?

Well as already stated in another answer you missed to quote the options right, it should be at least:

date +"%x %r %Z"

This is needed because you are using white-spaces to keep the different information apart, the man page for date suggests using -, or _, with this you could omit the quoting all together in normal terminal, or you escape the white-spaces.

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Examples:

• using '-' as divider

  date +%x-%r%Z
  

  gives the following output:

  21.09.2018-11:30:15 CEST
  

• using '_' as divider

  date +%x_%r%Z
  

  gives the following output:

  21.09.2018_11:30:15 CEST
  

• using escaped white-spaces as divider

  date +%x\ %r%Z
  

  gives the following output:

  21.09.2018 11:30:15 CEST
  

• using no dividers at all

  date +%x%r%Z
  

  gives the following output:

  21.09.201811:30:15 CEST
  

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Remainder for a special use case. When you try to incorporate date into a crontab command, you need to escape the % sign too. So as undivided information the command would look like this (Before mentioned rules apply for escaping still):

date +\%x\%r\%Z