Parse Date in Bash

Question

How would you parse a date in bash, with separate fields (years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds) into different variables?

The date format is: YYYY-MM-D

Answer 1

This is simple, just convert your dashes and colons to a space (no need to change IFS) and use 'read' all on one line:

read Y M D h m s <<< ${date//[-:]/ }

For example:

$ date=$(date +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
$ read Y M D h m s <<< ${date//[-: ]/ }
$ echo "Y=$Y, m=$m"
Y=2009, m=57