Linux – How to add a timestamp to bash script log

bashlinuxloggingshell

I have a constantly running script that I output to a log file:

script.sh >> /var/log/logfile

I'd like to add a timestamp before each line that is appended to the log. Like:

Sat Sep 10 21:33:06 UTC 2011 The server has booted up.  Hmmph.

Is there any jujitsu I can use?

Best Answer

You can pipe the script's output through a loop that prefixes the current date and time:

./script.sh | while IFS= read -r line; do printf '%s %s\n' "$(date)" "$line"; done >>/var/log/logfile

If you'll be using this a lot, it's easy to make a bash function to handle the loop:

adddate() {
    while IFS= read -r line; do
        printf '%s %s\n' "$(date)" "$line";
    done
}

./thisscript.sh | adddate >>/var/log/logfile
./thatscript.sh | adddate >>/var/log/logfile
./theotherscript.sh | adddate >>/var/log/logfile
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