unix inline script including another script

Question

I have two different script 1st one is

sar -u -s 11:00:00 -e 11:10:59 | grep Average: | awk '{printf($8)}'

2nd one will show the time which is 60 min old

date -d '60 minute ago' "+%H:%M:%S"

I want to use 2nd sctipt in 1st script (without creating any .sh file) Below code is not working

sar -u -s `date -d '60 minute ago' "%H:%M:%S"` -e 11:10:59 | grep Average: | awk '{printf($8)}'

If you would have tried running the command you wrote, the shell would tell you what's wrong. argument must be a format string beginning with '+'. Give it a try. — Chen A.
– Chen A., Commented Aug 25, 2021 at 6:55
I want to use the result of a 2nd command as input for a 1st command @user1934428 — RU Ahmed
– RU Ahmed, Commented Aug 25, 2021 at 9:58
Your "1st command" is a sar command. While I have never used sar, it does not, AFIK, process standard input. Please specify in your question (not in a comment), what you understand under input for the 1st command. Perhaps you mean "you want to use the standard output of the 2nd command as a parametre for the 1st command"? But this is what you already did in the code you posted; you only forgot to copy over the + sign. BTW, using $(....) instead of backquotes is more idiomatic for doing command substitution. — user1934428
– user1934428, Commented Aug 25, 2021 at 11:10

Dominique · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-25 06:43:01Z

1

When I try this, your second command seems not to work, it should be:

date -d '60 minute ago' "+%H:%M:%S"

(Mind the "+" at the beginning of your format string)

When I use this, using $(...) instead of the accent graves, for readability, everything seems to be working fine:

echo $(date -d '60 minute ago' "+%H:%M:%S")

answered Aug 25, 2021 at 6:43

Dominique

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2 Comments

@ceving: not useless: I demonstrated, using echo, how to use the result of a first command as input for a second command.

you are right. it was the about that + sign sar -u -s date -d '60 minute ago' "+%H:%M:%S"` -e 11:10:59 | grep Average: | awk '{printf($8)}'`