Display current date and time without punctuation

Without punctuation (as @Burusothman has mentioned):

current_date_time="`date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S`";
echo $current_date_time;

O/P:

20170115072120

With punctuation:

current_date_time="`date "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"`";
echo $current_date_time;

O/P:

2017-01-15 07:25:33

Interesting/funny way to do this using parameter expansion (requires bash 4.4 or newer):

${parameter@operator} - P operator

The expansion is a string that is the result of expanding the value of parameter as if it were a prompt string.

$ show_time() { local format='\D{%Y%m%d%H%M%S}'; echo "${format@P}"; }
$ show_time
20180724003251