I try to use annotate-output (part of devscripts package), to prefix outputs of a script with date and some extra info. First parameter can be a format string passed to date. I want to include a space in this format string, however, being a bash newbie I have no idea, how to escape the space to get it sent to date properly. Tried a bunch of options, but looks like no matter what I provide, sys just eats it...

Source of annotate-output can be found HERE.

user@host:/home/user$ annotate-output '+myscript: %H:%M:%S' echo "A"
date: extra operand `%H:%M:%S'
Try `date --help' for more information. I: Started echo A
date: extra operand `%H:%M:%S'
Try `date --help' for more information. O: A
date: extra operand `%H:%M:%S'
Try `date --help' for more information. I: Finished with exitcode 0

Expected output:

myscript: 14:04:16 I: Started echo A
myscript: 14:04:16 O: A
myscript: 14:04:16 I: Finished with exitcode 0

2 Answers

Unfortunately that script has some quoting issues. It will work if you add this function to the code:

date ()
{ command date "$*"
}

---

Actually you don't need to alter the source. Do this: define the "date" function and export it:

$ date() { command date "$*"; }
$ export -f date
$ annotate-output "+foo %T" bash -c "echo stdout; echo stderr >&2"
foo 10:38:30 I: Started bash -c echo stdout; echo stderr >&2
foo 10:38:30 E: stderr
foo 10:38:30 O: stdout
foo 10:38:30 I: Finished with exitcode 0

There might be problems if the thing you're annotating also calls date.

---

If you care to fix annotate-output on your system, apply this diff

$ diff /usr/bin/annotate-output bin/annotate-output
28c28
< echo "`date ${FMT}` $1: $line"
---
> printf "%s %s: %s\n" "$(date "$FMT")" "$1" "$line"
78c78
< echo "`date ${FMT}` I: Started $@"
---
> addtime I <<< "Started $*"
83c83
< echo "`date ${FMT}` I: Finished with exitcode $EXIT"
---
> addtime I <<< "Finished with exitcode $EXIT"

3

It will work if you quote parameter properly:

annotate-output '+"myscript: %H:%M:%S"' echo "A"

date command's format argument starts with +. That's right. But in order to pass space into it you should wrap all chars after + with quotes. Otherwise it will accept symbols which are following the whitespace as second command line argument.

1

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