Windows Batch File (.bat) to get current date in MMDDYYYY format.

Contributed by seamonkey420

July 24, 2005

Tagged: Computer programming

This is a recipe I discovered while working on a few old skool dos batch files. This is a quick .bat file to create a folder based on the current date however, this sets it up in the MMDDYYYY format. Useful for those .bat scripters who need to use the current date variable in such a format.

Just copy and paste the text in quotes to a text file. Then rename file test.bat and run from command line to see (echo is on by default).

This can be used in a very powerful way, the FOR command can be reused and changed to query to see if a file exists and then if so create the folder, etc.

for now, lets start basic…

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%

this does nothing but setup the %date variable to be todays date in MMDDYYYY format so it can be called later in the script, etc..

peace
seamonkey420

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Viewing 14 Comments

Anonymous 3 years ago 1 point
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Here is a one liner
<ul id="quote">For /f "tokens=2-4 delims=/ " %%a in ('date /t') do (set date=%%a-%%b-%%c)</ul>

There may still be value in the first example it you need to access the seperate mm,dd,yyyy values but this works great for me.

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Anonymous 3 years ago 1 point
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<ul id="quote"><h6>wattpuppy wrote:</h6>Here is a one liner
</ul><ul id="quote">For /f "tokens=2-4 delims=/ " %%a in ('date /t') do (set date=%%a-%%b-%%c)</ul>

There may still be value in the first example it you need to access the seperate mm,dd,yyyy values but this works great for me.

hmm.. I tried your oneliner and only could get the day and the year.. I was missing the month.. I tried playing with the tokens and changing it to 1-4, but then I got Tue 08-16-2004 ..

the first iteration on the initial page added an extra space which I didn't like.. thanks for the help!

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Anonymous 3 years ago 1 point
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I actually fiddled with it and made it two lines.. but it's working..

here it is..

FOR /F "TOKENS=1* DELIMS= " %%A IN ('DATE/T') DO SET CDATE=%%B
For /f "tokens=2-4 delims=/ " %%a in ('date /t') do (set date=%%a%%b%%c)

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Anonymous 3 years ago 1 point
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Wierd! I currently use the exact code I sent posted to generate mm-dd-yyyy on a log file. What OS are you using? I'm running this on both Winxp and Win2000 Server.

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Anonymous 3 years ago 1 point
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win 2003 server .. I can't see why there would be a difference...

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Subhash 3 years ago 1 point
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Hi,

Idea about getting the current date time in required format is good. I wanted to know how to subtract the required days from the current date.

Like current date is 11/18/2005
required date is 11/15/2005 i.e., subtract 3 days from current date.

Then use that date in our script.

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Anonymous 3 years ago 1 point
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Hi Subhash

Getting calculation of date is no easy task.
What O/S are you using.

It's inportant because, "echo %Date%" or date /t would produce
different results on different O/S and date formats ie.

WinXP English Date 01/12/2005
WinXP American Date 12/01/2005

Win 2000 the same but adds the Weekday Tue 01/08/2005

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mahen 2 years ago 1 point
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Hi,

You can try the below. it works in XP.

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

set /A dd=%dd%-3

set Pdate=%mm%/%dd%/%yyyy%
echo %Pdate%

rgds
Mahen

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pbv kumar 1 month ago 1 point
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it works fantastic bu tmy problem is in format i want the date should be form 1 to 9 will be 01 ,02,03 & 09 like . kindly giv eme the solutions

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davak 2 years ago 1 point
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<ul id="quote"><h6>Subhash wrote:</h6>Hi,

Idea about getting the current date time in required format is good. I wanted to know how to subtract the required days from the current date.

Like current date is 11/18/2005
required date is 11/15/2005 i.e., subtract 3 days from current date.

Then use that date in our script.</ul>

Date Calculation In Batch Files XP/2000:
http://www.tech-recipes.com/batch_file_programm...

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Anonymous 1 year ago 1 point
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Seamonkey 420,

I am trying to modify your code so it sets a variable for date in the format YYMMDD with no spaces. I tried to make the mods, but I just don't have the knowledge nor the time to figure this out.

Can you assist?

dklock

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Anonymous 1 year ago 1 point
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Try this.

for /f "tokens=1,2" %%u in ('date /t') do set d=%%v for /f "tokens=1" %%u in ('time /t') do set t=%%u if "%t:~1,1%"==":" set t=0%t% rem set timestr=%d:~6,4%%d:~3,2%%d:~0,2%%t:~0,2%%t:~3,2% set datestr=%d:~6,4%%d:~0,2%%d:~3,2% set timestr=%t:~0,2%%t:~3,2% @echo %datestr%-%timestr% @echo %datestr% @echo %timestr%

SparkByte

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Anonymous 11 months ago 1 point
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i am working on a windows batch script that creates a zip file and adds the date to the file name, this works great for a full backup. I want to be able to set the initial date that the incremental backup begins, and then count up three days, and append the updated date to the zip file name.

This is what i use to create the date:
Set DD_MM_YYYY=%DATE:~4,2%_%DATE:~7,2%_%DATE:~10,4%

then create file and add it to name as so:
7a u -tzip e:backupincremental_%DD_MM_YYYY%.zip

I would like to set the initial date for the file on lets say Monday 12_10_2007 then for Tues, Wed, and Thurs, append the file name to something like:
incremental_%DD_MM_YYYY%_%Tues%.zip
incremental_%DD_MM_YYYY%_%Wed%.zip
incremental_%DD_MM_YYYY%_%Thurs%.zip

Is it possible to set tues, wed, thurs as variables then script the rename of the file to reflect the new days?

I guess I'm too new at this and could use some advice.

Thanks,

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TonyCH 4 weeks ago 1 point
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The 2nd line should have: echo %CDATE%
instead of: DATE/T

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