I am trying to add %20 between the date and time, to return YYY-MM-DD%20HH-MM-SS
How can I escape the % symbol?
date '+%Y-%m-%d%20%H:%M:%S'
Returns:
2023-02-06 %H:12:40
And when I quote the %20:
date '+%Y-%m-%d\"%20\"%H:%M:%S'
The quotes are also returned:
2023-02-06"%20"11:13:59
>Solution :
The conversion specifier %% expands to a literal %
$ date +%%
%
so
$ date '+%Y-%m-%d%%20%H:%M:%S'
2023-02-06%2011:20:17
However, as this implies you are using the string in a URL, I would recommend simply outputting a space, and letting whatever is constructing the URL ensure that necessary characters are escaped.