How do I get current datetime on the Windows comma

Question

Update: Now that it's 2016 I'd use PowerShell for this unless there's a really compelling backwards-compatible reason for it, particularly because of the regional settings issue with using date. See @npocmaka's https://stackoverflow.com/a/19799236/8479

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What's a Windows command line statement(s) I can use to get the current datetime in a format that I can put into a filename?

I want to have a .bat file that zips up a directory into an archive with the current date and time as part of the name, for example, Code_2008-10-14_2257.zip. Is there any easy way I can do this, independent of the regional settings of the machine?

I don't really mind about the date format, ideally it'd be yyyy-mm-dd, but anything simple is fine.

So far I've got this, which on my machine gives me Tue_10_14_2008_230050_91:

rem Get the datetime in a format that can go in a filename.
set _my_datetime=%date%_%time%
set _my_datetime=%_my_datetime: =_%
set _my_datetime=%_my_datetime::=%
set _my_datetime=%_my_datetime:/=_%
set _my_datetime=%_my_datetime:.=_%

rem Now use the timestamp by in a new ZIP file name.
"d:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" a -r Code_%_my_datetime%.zip Code

I can live with this, but it seems a bit clunky. Ideally it'd be briefer and have the format mentioned earlier.

I'm using Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Professional. I don't want to install additional utilities to achieve this (although I realise there are some that will do nice date formatting).

Answer 1

Here's a variant from alt.msdos.batch.nt that works local-independently.

Put this in a text file, e.g. getDate.cmd

-----------8<------8<------------ snip -- snip ----------8<-------------
    :: Works on any NT/2k machine independent of regional date settings
    @ECHO off
    SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS
    if "%date%A" LSS "A" (set toks=1-3) else (set toks=2-4)
    for /f "tokens=2-4 delims=(-)" %%a in ('echo:^|date') do (
      for /f "tokens=%toks% delims=.-/ " %%i in ('date/t') do (
        set '%%a'=%%i
        set '%%b'=%%j
        set '%%c'=%%k))
    if %'yy'% LSS 100 set 'yy'=20%'yy'%
    set Today=%'yy'%-%'mm'%-%'dd'% 
    ENDLOCAL & SET v_year=%'yy'%& SET v_month=%'mm'%& SET v_day=%'dd'%

    ECHO Today is Year: [%V_Year%] Month: [%V_Month%] Day: [%V_Day%]

    :EOF
-----------8<------8<------------ snip -- snip ----------8<-------------

To get the code to work sans error msg's to stderr, I had to add the single quotes arount the variable assignments for %%a, %%b and %%c. My locale (PT) was causing errors at one stage in the looping/parsing where stuff like "set =20" was getting executed. The quotes yield a token (albeit empty) for the left-hand side of the assignment statement.

The downside is the messy locale variable names: 'yy', 'mm' and 'dd'. But hey, who cares!

Answer 2

This isn't really briefer but might be a more flexible way (credit):

FOR /F "TOKENS=1* DELIMS= " %%A IN ('DATE/T') DO SET CDATE=%%B
FOR /F "TOKENS=1,2 eol=/ DELIMS=/ " %%A IN ('DATE/T') DO SET mm=%%B
FOR /F "TOKENS=1,2 DELIMS=/ eol=/" %%A IN ('echo %CDATE%') DO SET dd=%%B
FOR /F "TOKENS=2,3 DELIMS=/ " %%A IN ('echo %CDATE%') DO SET yyyy=%%B
SET date=%mm%%dd%%yyyy%

Answer 3

http://sourceforge.net/projects/unxutils/files/

Look inside the ZIP file for something called "Date.exe" and rename it "DateFormat.exe" (to avoid conflicts).

Put it in your Windows system32 folder.

It has a lot of "date output" options.

For help, use DateFormat.exe --h

I'm not sure how you would put its output into an environment variable... using SET.

Answer 4

I use this (again not region independent (UK))

set bklog=%date:~6,4%-%date:~3,2%-%date:~0,2%_%time:~0,2%%time:~3,2%

Answer 5

Another way (credit):

@For /F "tokens=2,3,4 delims=/ " %%A in ('Date /t') do @( 
    Set Month=%%A
    Set Day=%%B
    Set Year=%%C
)

@echo DAY = %Day%
@echo Month = %Month%
@echo Year = %Year%

Note that both my answers here are still reliant on the order of the day and month as determined by regional settings - not sure how to work around that.

Answer 6

Given a known locality, for reference in functional form. The ECHOTIMESTAMP call shows how to get the timestamp into a variable (DTS in this example.)

@ECHO off

CALL :ECHOTIMESTAMP
GOTO END

:TIMESTAMP
SETLOCAL  EnableDelayedExpansion
    SET DATESTAMP=!DATE:~10,4!-!DATE:~4,2!-!DATE:~7,2!
    SET TIMESTAMP=!TIME:~0,2!-!TIME:~3,2!-!TIME:~6,2!
    SET DTS=!DATESTAMP: =0!-!TIMESTAMP: =0!
ENDLOCAL & SET "%~1=%DTS%"
GOTO :EOF

:ECHOTIMESTAMP
SETLOCAL
    CALL :TIMESTAMP DTS
    ECHO %DTS%
ENDLOCAL
GOTO :EOF

:END

EXIT /b 0

And saved to file, timestamp.bat, here's the output: