Re: printf %()T

[Greg Wooledge]

On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 11:51:25PM -0400, Lee wrote:
> semi-working:
> 
> $ printf  "%(%A)T  %(%c)T" 1
> Wednesday  Thu 27 Apr 2023 11:48:12 PM EDT
> 
> There's clearly a problem with the day of the week :(

First: you're only passing one argument, but you've got two separate
%()T specifiers.  So, the first one gets the argument "1", and the second
one gets the argument "" (which in current versions of bash acts like -1).

Second: the argument "1" means "1 second after the Epoch".

unicorn:~$ printf '%(%c)T\n' 1
Wed Dec 31 19:00:01 1969

The day of the week for this moment in time will be either Wednesday or
Thursday, depending on your time zone.

If you want to pass a single argument, you could combine your two
specifiers into one big one:

unicorn:~$ printf '%(%A  %c)T\n' 1
Wednesday  Wed Dec 31 19:00:01 1969

This ensures that you're using the same timestamp for the whole thing.