Shell script not executing a command returned from a function Can someone please explain why this doesn't work? I have a bash function that simply returns the number of seconds in a duration timestamp. **Shell script function** seconds() { result=$(echo "\"1970-01-01 $1+0\"") echo date +%s -d $result } **Calling the function** seconds 00:00:02.00 #works Produces the following output `date +%s -d "1970-01-01 00:00:02.00+0"` if I copy this exact text and execute it in the terminal it works. $(seconds 00:00:02.00) #error However this returns an error: date: extra operand ‘00:00:02.00+0"’ What's the problem here? Or is there a better way to do this?

You don't need to use `echo` at any point here.

Using the subshell, you're executing the output of the `seconds` function which is generally ill-advised as it can cause unexpected behavior like you're seeing.

Instead, simplify your function to run the `date` command itself:


#!/bin/bash
seconds () {
date -d "1970-01-01 $1+0" "+%s"
}

seconds 00:00:02.00


Output: `2`