title: In Bash, how can I lazy eval 'date'?
body: <p>I have a script that outputs with timestamps but I can't manage to have the date evaluate when the specific line is reached; all of the stamps have the time of the script's first call, that is, they're all the same, even though the script takes hours to complete.</p>
  
  <p>I'm trying this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>TIMESTAMP=`date +"%H:%M:%S --"`
  ...
  
  eval "echo $TIMESTAMP Starting backup"
  ...
  eval "echo $TIMESTAMP Doing something here"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What am I doing wrong?</p>