How to get and display yesterday date?

Question

I am using the date command for a batch script.
I am wondering how to use command date to get yesterday date.

Answer 1

There is a much cheaper way of doing this, exclusively in batch. I know its rough, but it worked for me.

Basically write yesterdays date into a text file like yesterday.txt. Then call it next time the process runs. Works for a process I have that runs once a day only.

::pick up yesterdays date from file
::Needs to be done as the file generated today is *yesterdays* report.
for /F "tokens=1" %%a IN (D:\BIN\Yesterday.txt) DO set yest=%%a

::Write todays date to file for use tomorrow
echo %date% >D:\BIN\Yesterday.txt

Then you can call yesterdays date as variable with %yest%.

Answer 2

The main danger with the date variable is the locale sensitivity. If you have PowerShell available (it's a lot more common these days even in the big corporations) then you can use PowerShell to do the formatting and wrap it within a batch FOR statement.

The following PowerShell line will do the maths and format the date for you:-

PowerShell $date = Get-Date; $date=$date.AddDays(-1); $date.ToString('yyyy-MM-dd')

You can then execute this via FOR to get it into a batch file variable (remembering to escape a whole bunch of characters with the hat ^ symbol, and using the backtick to avoid the embeded quotes):-

for /f "usebackq" %%i in (`PowerShell $date ^= Get-Date^; $date ^= $date.AddDays^(-1^)^; $date.ToString^('yyyy-MM-dd'^)`) do set YESTERDAY=%%i echo %YESTERDAY%

I'm sure someone with superior PowerShell and Batch programming skills can reduce the PowerShell command and/or the number of escaped characters to make it more readable/maintainable.

Answer 3

I found this script to work well

@echo off

set yyyy=

set $tok=1-3
for /f "tokens=1 delims=.:/-, " %%u in ('date /t') do set $d1=%%u
if "%$d1:~0,1%" GTR "9" set $tok=2-4
for /f "tokens=%$tok% delims=.:/-, " %%u in ('date /t') do (
for /f "skip=1 tokens=2-4 delims=/-,()." %%x in ('echo.^|date') do (
set %%x=%%u
set %%y=%%v
set %%z=%%w
set $d1=
set $tok=))

if "%yyyy%"=="" set yyyy=%yy%
if /I %yyyy% LSS 100 set /A yyyy=2000 + 1%yyyy% - 100

set CurDate=%mm%/%dd%/%yyyy%
set dayCnt=%1

if "%dayCnt%"=="" set dayCnt=1

REM Substract your days here
set /A dd=1%dd% - 100 - %dayCnt%
set /A mm=1%mm% - 100

:CHKDAY
if /I %dd% GTR 0 goto DONE
set /A mm=%mm% - 1
if /I %mm% GTR 0 goto ADJUSTDAY
set /A mm=12
set /A yyyy=%yyyy% - 1

:ADJUSTDAY
if %mm%==1 goto SET31
if %mm%==2 goto LEAPCHK
if %mm%==3 goto SET31
if %mm%==4 goto SET30
if %mm%==5 goto SET31
if %mm%==6 goto SET30
if %mm%==7 goto SET31
if %mm%==8 goto SET31
if %mm%==9 goto SET30
if %mm%==10 goto SET31
if %mm%==11 goto SET30
REM ** Month 12 falls through

:SET31
set /A dd=31 + %dd%
goto CHKDAY

:SET30
set /A dd=30 + %dd%
goto CHKDAY

:LEAPCHK
set /A tt=%yyyy% %% 4
if not %tt%==0 goto SET28
set /A tt=%yyyy% %% 100
if not %tt%==0 goto SET29
set /A tt=%yyyy% %% 400
if %tt%==0 goto SET29

:SET28
set /A dd=28 + %dd%
goto CHKDAY

:SET29
set /A dd=29 + %dd%
goto CHKDAY

:DONE
if /I %mm% LSS 10 set mm=0%mm%
if /I %dd% LSS 10 set dd=0%dd%

REM Set IIS and AWS date variables
set IISDT=%yyyy:~2,2%%mm%%dd%
set AWSDT=%yyyy%-%mm%-%dd%

The results would look like:

IIS Date: 130904
AWS Date: 2013-09-04

Script taken from http://www.powercram.com/2010/07/get-yesterdays-date-in-ms-dos-batch.html