Bash: passing variable to mv command

Question

- Bash 4.1.17 (works with Cygwin)

Hello, I'm trying to pass a date to the --suffix option on the move (mv) command. I can pass a simple string (like my name), but I can't pass a date. If you run the script below, you will see that the mv command with the suffix = "$ var" works, but the suffix = "$ now" does not.

#!/bin/bash

dir="your directory goes here"

now="$(date "+%m/%d/%y")"

var="_CARL!!!"

echo "$now"

echo "$var"

cd "$dir"

touch test.txt

# error if already exists
mkdir ./stack_question

touch ./stack_question/test.txt

mv -b --suffix="$var" test.txt ./stack_question/

The idea is that if test.txt already exists while trying to move the file, a suffix will be added to the file. Therefore, if you run this script with:

--suffix="$var"

you will see that the stack_question directory contains two files:

test.txt and test.txt_CARL !!!

But if you run this script with:

--suffix="$now"

you will see that the stack_question only contains

test.txt

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

, / .

now="$(date +%m_%d_%y)"