Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 431350
error using date in bash
Last modified: 2008-02-04 11:38:04 EST
Description of problem: Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): bash-3.2-20.fc8 coreutils-6.9-12.fc8 How reproducible: Steps to Reproduce: 1.TEST=8 2.echo $(($(echo $TEST)-1)) - executes 3.echo $(($(date +'%H')-1)) - executes 4.echo $(($(date +'%y')-1)) - error 5.echo $(($(date +'%m')-1)) - same error if month is AUGUST Actual results: bash: 08: value too great for base (error token is "08") Expected results: In the year 2008, the answer should be 7 Additional info: The problem could be in date or bash. The problem is long standing, maybe about 3-4 year. Had reported earlier also, a long time back.
Is there any documentation that would suggest this is a violation of some standard or something? bash interprets numbers beginning with zero as octal numbers. The date manpage says that when using the '-' flag, numbers are not zero-padded. The following commands work: > echo $(($(date +'%-y')-1)) > echo $(($(date +'%-m')-1)) May I close this notabug?
You are right. My bad. Sorry for bothering you. I never came to understand the error message as it was not clear enough. But one thing is still unclear, why does it happen when the output is 08 only. The command runs without error if output is less than 08 or ( as far as remember ) above 10, I think. You may of course close the bug except that one issue.
Well, 07 is a valid octal number, right? And 10 is not interpreted as octal, obviously.