Bash script to log ping requests

[scaryfast]

Hi

I'm trying to write a bash/shell script to ping a server and redirect part of the output to a file.

The following code does the job:

#!/bin/sh
date >> /home/matt/ping.log
echo ': ' >> /home/matt/ping.log
ping -qc 5 example.com | grep '5 packets' >> /home/matt/ping.log
exit 0

But how do I put the output on a single line, e.g:

Sat Sep  8 20:57:45 BST 2007: 5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4002ms

[scaryfast]

I figured it out myself:

#!/bin/sh
NOW=$(date +"%T %m/%d/%Y")
PING=$(ping -qc 5 example.com | grep '5 packets')
echo $NOW: $PING >> /home/matt/ping.log
exit 0