windows batch script format date and time

Question

In a windows (XP) batch script I need to format the current date and time for later use in files names etc.,

Similar to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/864718/how-to-append-a-date-in-batch-files but with time in as well

I have this so far:

echo %DATE%
echo %TIME%
set datetimef=%date:~-4%_%date:~3,2%_%date:~0,2%__%time:~0,2%_%time:~3,2%_%time:~6,2%
echo %datetimef%

which gives:

28/07/2009
 8:35:31.01
2009_07_28__ 8_36_01

Anyway a can allow for non-24 hour in %TIME% so I can get:

2009_07_28__08_36_01

Answer 1

The offset:length formatting supported with the SET command in Windows will not allow you to pad the 0 as you seem to be interested in.

However, you can code a BATCH script to check for the hour being less than 10 and
pad accordingly with a different echo string.

You will find some information on the SET command on this link.

---

You can also change to other programming methods to get here.

It is quite simple in unix bash (available with Cygwin on Windows) to just say,

date +%Y_%m_%d__%H_%M_%S

And, it always pads correctly.

Answer 2

set hour=%time:~0,2%
if "%hour:~0,1%" == " " set datetimef=%date:~-4%_%date:~3,2%_%date:~0,2%__0%time:~1,2%_%time:~3,2%_%time:~6,2%
else set datetimef=%date:~-4%_%date:~3,2%_%date:~0,2%__%time:~0,2%_%time:~3,2%_%time:~6,2%

maybe not direct answer but a close one?

at least it may be inpiring?

Answer 3

ended up with

set hour=%time:~0,2%
if "%hour:~0,1%" == " " set hour=0%hour:~1,1%
echo hour=%hour%
set min=%time:~3,2%
if "%min:~0,1%" == " " set min=0%min:~1,1%
echo min=%min%
set secs=%time:~6,2%
if "%secs:~0,1%" == " " set secs=0%secs:~1,1%
echo secs=%secs%

set year=%date:~-4%
echo year=%year%
set month=%date:~3,2%
if "%month:~0,1%" == " " set month=0%month:~1,1%
echo month=%month%
set day=%date:~0,2%
if "%day:~0,1%" == " " set day=0%day:~1,1%
echo day=%day%

set datetimef=%year%%month%%day%_%hour%%min%%secs%

echo datetimef=%datetimef%

Answer 4

@ECHO OFF
: Sets the proper date and time stamp with 24Hr Time for log file naming
: convention

SET HOUR=%time:~0,2%
SET dtStamp9=%date:~-4%%date:~4,2%%date:~7,2%_0%time:~1,1%%time:~3,2%%time:~6,2% 
SET dtStamp24=%date:~-4%%date:~4,2%%date:~7,2%_%time:~0,2%%time:~3,2%%time:~6,2%

if "%HOUR:~0,1%" == " " (SET dtStamp=%dtStamp9%) else (SET dtStamp=%dtStamp24%)

ECHO %dtStamp%

PAUSE

Answer 5

REM Assumes UK style date format for date environment variable (DD/MM/YYYY).
REM Assumes times before 10:00:00 (10am) displayed padded with a space instead of a zero.
REM If first character of time is a space (less than 1) then set DATETIME to:
REM YYYY-MM-DD-0h-mm-ss
REM Otherwise, set DATETIME to:
REM YYYY-MM-DD-HH-mm-ss
REM Year, month, day format provides better filename sorting (otherwise, days grouped
REM together when sorted alphabetically).

IF "%time:~0,1%" LSS "1" (
   SET DATETIME=%date:~6,4%-%date:~3,2%-%date:~0,2%-0%time:~1,1%-%time:~3,2%-%time:~6,2%
) ELSE (
   SET DATETIME=%date:~6,4%-%date:~3,2%-%date:~0,2%-%time:~0,2%-%time:~3,2%-%time:~6,2%
)

ECHO %DATETIME%

Answer 6

As has been noted, parsing the date and time is only useful if you know the format being used by the current user (eg. MM/dd/yy or dd-MM-yyyy just to name 2). This could be determined, but by the time you do all the stressing and parsing, you will still end up with some situation where there is an unexpected format used, and more tweaks will be be necessary.

You can also use some external program that will return a date slug in your preferred format, but that has disadvantages of needing to distribute the utility program with your script/batch.

there are also batch tricks using the CMOS clock in a pretty raw way, but that is tooo close to bare wires for most people, and also not always the preferred place to retrieve the date/time.

Below is a solution that avoids the above problems. Yes, it introduces some other issues, but for my purposes I found this to be the easiest, clearest, most portable solution for creating a datestamp in .bat files for modern Windows systems. This is just an example, but I think you will see how to modify for other date and/or time formats, etc.

reg copy "HKCU\Control Panel\International" "HKCU\Control Panel\International-Temp" /f
reg add "HKCU\Control Panel\International" /v sShortDate /d "yyMMdd" /f
@REM reg query "HKCU\Control Panel\International" /v sShortDate
set LogDate=%date%
reg copy "HKCU\Control Panel\International-Temp" "HKCU\Control Panel\International" /f