creating powershell script to backup a file and append the date

Question

Currently I have a one line batch file to back up a file. I run it manually when I need to back up a file. The only thing I would like to add to it is the current date. Here is what I have:

xcopy /W /Y ACTIVE.DB ACTIVE.DB.BACKUP

the destination file should simply be ACTIVE.DB.BACKUP.YYYYMMDD. How would I go about creating a script that will allow me to double click on it from Windows Explorer and make the xcopy happen?

Answer 1

You can customize your filename by embedding a formatted [datetime]::now in the file name in PowerShell like so:

xcopy /W /Y ACTIVE.DB "ACTIVE.DB.BACKUP.$([datetime]::now.ToString('yyyy-MM-dd'))"

If the line feels busy and unmaintainable, you can refactor it to multiple lines:

$now = [datetime]::now.ToString('yyyy-MM-dd')
xcopy /W /Y ACTIVE.DB "ACTIVE.DB.BACKUP.$now"

To get double-click execution, I usually make a batch file that runs the PowerShell command as described here:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/29645/set-up-powershell-script-for-automatic-execution

Answer 2

Just to point out that you can do this with Copy-Item e.g.:

Set-Location $path
Copy-Item ACTIVE.DB "ACTIVE.DB.$(get-date -f yyyyMMdd)" -Force -Confirm

If you're going for robust then I'd use robocopy.exe.