Adding timestamp to a filename with mv in BASH

Well, I'm a linux newbie, and I'm having an issue with a simple bash script.

I've got a program that adds to a log file while it's running. Over time that log file gets huge. I'd like to create a startup script which will rename and move the log file before each run, effectively creating separate log files for each run of the program. Here's what I've got so far:

pastebin

DATE=$(date +"%Y%m%d%H%M")
mv server.log logs/$DATE.log
echo program

When run, I see this:

: command not found
program

When I cd to the logs directory and run dir, I see this:

201111211437\r.log\r

What's going on? I'm assuming there's some syntax issue I'm missing, but I can't seem to figure it out.

---

UPDATE: Thanks to shellter's comment below, I've found the problem to be due to the fact that I'm editing the .sh file in Notepad++ in windows, and then sending via ftp to the server, where I run the file via ssh. After running dos2unix on the file, it works.

New question: How can I save the file correctly in the first place, to avoid having to perform this fix every time I resend the file?

mv server.log logs/$(date -d "today" +"%Y%m%d%H%M").log

The few lines you posted from your script look okay to me. It's probably something a bit deeper.

You need to find which line is giving you this error. Add set -xv to the top of your script. This will print out the line number and the command that's being executed to STDERR. This will help you identify where in your script you're getting this particular error.

BTW, do you have a shebang at the top of your script? When I see something like this, I normally expect its an issue with the Shebang. For example, if you had #! /bin/bash on top, but your bash interpreter is located in /usr/bin/bash, you'll see this error.

EDIT

> New question: How can I save the file correctly in the first place, to avoid having to perform this fix every time I resend the file?

Two ways:

1. Select the Edit->EOL Conversion->Unix Format menu item when you edit a file. Once it has the correct line endings, Notepad++ will keep them.
2. To make sure all new files have the correct line endings, go to the Settings->Preferences menu item, and pull up the Preferences dialog box. Select the New Document/Default Directory tab. Under New Document and Format, select the Unix radio button. Click the Close button.

A single line method within bash works like this.

[some out put] >$(date "+%Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S").ver

will create a file with a timestamp name with ver extension. A working file listing snap shot to a date stamp file name as follows can show it working.

find . -type f -exec ls -la {} \; | cut -d ' ' -f 6- >$(date "+%Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S").ver

Of course

cat somefile.log > $(date "+%Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S").ver

or even simpler

ls > $(date "+%Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S").ver

I use this command for simple rotate a file:

mv output.log `date +%F`-output.log

In local folder I have 2019-09-25-output.log

Well, it's not a direct answer to your question, but there's a tool in GNU/Linux whose job is to rotate log files on regular basis, keeping old ones zipped up to a certain limit. It's logrotate

You can write your scripts in notepad but just make sure you convert them using this -> $ sed -i 's/\r$//' yourscripthere

I use it all they time when I'm working in cygwin and it works. Hope this helps

First, thanks for the answers above! They lead to my solution.

I added this alias to my .bashrc file:

alias now='date +%Y-%m-%d-%H.%M.%S'

Now when I want to put a time stamp on a file such as a build log I can do this:

mvn clean install | tee build-$(now).log

and I get a file name like:

build-2021-02-04-03.12.12.log