Get the date (a day before current time) in Bash
if you have GNU date and i understood you correctly
$ date +%Y:%m:%d -d "yesterday"
2009:11:09
or
$ date +%Y:%m:%d -d "1 day ago"
2009:11:09
If you have BSD (OSX) date
you can do it like this:
date -j -v-1d
Wed Dec 14 15:34:14 CET 2011
Or if you want to do date calculations on an arbitrary date:
date -j -v-1d -f "%Y-%m-%d" "2011-09-01" "+%Y-%m-%d"
2011-08-31
date --date='-1 day'
MAC OSX
For yesterday's date:
date -v-1d +%F
where 1d defines current day minus 1 day. Similarly,
date -v-1w +%F - for previous week date
date -v-1m +%F - for previous month date
IF YOU HAVE GNU DATE,
date --date="1 day ago"
More info: https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-unix-get-yesterdays-tomorrows-date.html