[NTLUG:Discuss] verify that a text string is a valid date.

[Paul M Foster]

Richard Geoffrion wrote:
> I'm trying to do something but I don't know what it is called.
> 
> I want to check to see if the first 10 characters of a file is a vaild  
> date...eg  2006-02-01  and if it IS..then I want to continue the process.
> 
> What am I trying to do in bash(or other utility terms)?  I don't know 
> the name of what I'm trying to do so I'm finding it difficult to search.
> 

It's called "grepping". You're trying to do a regular expression search, 
which can be accomplished with grep. See man 7 regex and man grep. (And 
of course, the whole thing can be wrapped in bash.)

-- 
Paul M. Foster