Convert string to date in bash

Question

I have a string in the format \"yyyymmdd\". It is a string in bash and I want to get it converted into a date so that all other date functions can be used on it.

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Answer 1

We can use date -d option

1) Change format to "%Y-%m-%d" format i.e 20121212 to 2012-12-12

date -d '20121212' +'%Y-%m-%d'

2)Get next or last day from a given date=20121212. Like get a date 7 days in past with specific format

date -d '20121212 -7 days' +'%Y-%m-%d'

3) If we are getting date in some variable say dat

dat2=$(date -d "$dat -1 days" +'%Y%m%d')