Setting a windows batch file variable to the day of the week

Question

I have a windows batch file that runs daily  Wish to log data into a file and want to rotate it  i e  having at most the last 7 days worth of data    Looked into the commands DATE and DELIMS - Cannot figure out a solution   Is there a simple solution to create a file name that contains the day of the week i e  0 for monday etc   Or do I have to resort to some better shell script

User · Accepted Answer

DATE  is not your friend  Because the  DATE  environment variable  and the DATE command  returns the current date using the Windows short date format that is fully and endlessly customizable  One user may configure the system to return 07 06 2012 while another might choose Fri060712  Using  DATE  is a complete nightmare for a BAT programmer    There are two possible approaches to solve this problem    You may be tempted to temporarily change the short date format  by changing the locale settings in the registry value HKCU Control Panel International sShortDate  to your recognizable format  Then access  DATE  to get the date in the format you want  and finally restore the format back to the original user format  Something like this  reg copy  HKCU Control Panel International   HKCU Control Panel International-Temp   f  gt nul reg add  HKCU Control Panel International   v sShortDate  d  ddd   f  gt nul set DOW  DATE  reg copy  HKCU Control Panel International-Temp   HKCU Control Panel International   f  gt nul   but this method has two problems     it tampers with a global registry value for its local particular purpouses  so it may interfere with other processes or user tasks that at the very same time query the date in short date format  including itself if run simultaneously   and it returns the three letter day of the week in the local language that may be different in different systems or different users   use WMIC Win32 LocalTime  that returns the date in a convenient way to directly parse it with a FOR command   FOR  F  skip 1    A IN   WMIC Path Win32 LocalTime Get DayOfWeek    DO     set DOW   A     this is the method I recommend

User · Answer

I thought that my first answer gives the correct day of week as a number between 0 and 6  However  because you had not indicated why this answer does not give the result you want  I can only guess the reason   The Batch file below create a log file each day with a digit in the name  0 Sunday  1 Monday  etc    The program assume that echo  date  show the date in MM DD YYYY format  if this is not the case  just change the position of mm and dd variables in the for command    echo off for  F  tokens 1-3 delims      a in    date    do set  A mm 10  a    100  dd 10  b    100  yy   c if  mm  lss 3 set  A mm  12  yy- 1 set  A a yy 100  b a 4  c 2-a b  e 36525  yy 4716  100  f 306  mm 1  10  dow  c dd e f-1523   7 echo Today log data  gt  Day- dow  txt   If this is not what you want  please indicate the problem so I can fix it   EDIT  The version below get date parts independent of locale settings    echo off for  F  skip 1 tokens 2-4 delims  -      A in   date   lt  NUL   do      for  F  tokens 1-3 delims      a in    date    do         set   A   a       set   B   b       set   C   c        set  A mm 10 mm     100  dd 10 dd     100 if  mm  lss 3 set  A mm  12  yy- 1 set  A a yy 100  b a 4  c 2-a b  e 36525  yy 4716  100  f 306  mm 1  10    dow  c dd e f-1523   7 echo Today log data  gt  Day- dow  txt   EDIT  The version below insert day of week as 3-letter short name    echo off for  F  skip 1 tokens 2-4 delims  -      A in   date   lt  NUL   do      for  F  tokens 1-3 delims      a in    date    do         set   A   a       set   B   b       set   C   c        set  A mm 10 mm     100  dd 10 dd     100 if  mm  lss 3 set  A mm  12  yy- 1 set  A a yy 100  b a 4  c 2-a b  e 36525  yy 4716  100  f 306  mm 1  10    dow  c dd e f-1523   7   1 for  F  tokens  dow     a in   Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat   do set dow   a echo Today log data  gt  Day- dow  txt   Regards   Antonio

User · Answer

Rem Remove the end comma and add  A to set for this line worked for me  set  A a yy 100  b a 4  c 2-a b  e 36525  yy 4716  100  f 306  mm 1  10

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If you can change format of short date in the PC to  ddd yyyy-MM-dd   only first parameter  ddd  is compulsory   then following command returns-  c   gt vol   date The current date is  Mon 2014-12-01   Then you can write you batch file -   echo off  vol   date   find  i  sun   gt  nul  if not errorlevel 1 goto SUN  vol   date   find  i  mon   gt  nul  if not errorlevel 1 goto MON          write block for other week days      goto END   SUN set fname  sun  goto BACKUP   MON set fname  mon  goto BACKUP          write block for other week days   BACKUP echo  fname    END

User · Answer

This turned out way more complex then I first suspected  and I guess that s what intrigued me  I searched every where and all the methods given wouldnt work on Windows 7   So I have an alternate solution which uses a Visual Basic Script    The batch creates and executes the script DayOfWeek vbs   assigns the scripts output  Monday  Tuesday etc  to a variable  dow   the variable is then checked and another variable  dpwnum  assigned with the days number  afterwards the VBS is deleted hope it helps    echo off  REM Create VBS that will get day of week in same directory as batch echo wscript echo WeekdayName Weekday Date   gt  gt DayOfWeek vbs  REM Cycle through output to get day of week i e monday tuesday etc for  f  delims     a in   cscript  nologo DayOfWeek vbs   do  set dow   a  REM delete vbs del DayOfWeek vbs  REM Used for testing outputs days name echo  dow   REM Case of the days name is important must have a capital letter at start REM Check days name and assign value depending IF  dow   Monday set downum 0 IF  dow   Tuesday set downum 1 IF  dow   Wednesday set downum 2 IF  dow   Thursday set downum 3 IF  dow   Friday set downum 4 IF  dow   Saturday set downum 5 IF  dow   Sunday set downum 6  REM print the days number 0-mon 1-tue     6-sun echo  downum   REM set a file name using day of week number set myfile  downum  bak  echo  myfile   pause exit   EDIT   Though I turned to VBS  It can be done in pure batch  took me a while to get it working and a lot of searching lol  but this seems to work     echo off SETLOCAL enabledelayedexpansion SET  a count 0 FOR  F  skip 1    D IN   wmic path win32 localtime get dayofweek   DO       if   count   GTR  0  GOTO next     set dow   D     SET  a count  1    next echo  dow  pause   The only caveat for you on the above batch is that its day of weeks are from 1-7 and not 0-6

User · Answer

This is not my work  well  I modified it slightly from the example   and it s late to the game  but this works on Server 2003 for me    echo off   set daysofweek Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday   for  F  skip 2 tokens 2-4 delims      A in   WMIC Path Win32 LocalTime Get DayOfWeek  Format csv   do set daynumber   A   for  F  tokens  daynumber  delims      B in    daysofweek    do set day   B   Citation  TechSupportForum

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First - Copy CON SETUPDAY 001     SET WORKDAY  Z    very important - no cr lf   DATE  T  gt SETUPDAY 002 COPY SETUPDAY 001 SETUPDAY 002 NEWDAY BAT  gt nul CALL NEWDAY BAT  SET WEEKDAY  WORKDAY  0 3  SET MDY  WORKDAY  4 10    USE  WEEKDAY  IN YOUR SCRIPT

User · Answer

few more ways   1 Robocopy not available in XP but can be downloaded form with win 2003 resource tool kit  Also might depend on localization    echo off setlocal  for  f  skip 8 tokens 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 delims       D in   robocopy  l        ns  nc  ndl  nfl  np  njh  XF    XD     do    set  dow   D   set  month   E   set  day   F   set  HH   G   set  MM   H   set  SS   I   set  year   J     echo Day of the week   dow  endlocal   2 MAKECAB  - works on every windows machine  but creates a small temp file  Function provided by carlos    Echo Off   Call  GetDate Init Rem  GetDate Init should be called one time in the code before call to  Getdate Call  GetDate Echo weekday  weekday   Goto  EOF   GetDate Init Set  A  jan 1 feb 2 mar 3 apr 4 may 5 jun 6 jul 7 aug 8 sep 9 oct 10 nov 11 dec 12  Set  A  mon 1 tue 2 wed 3 thu 4 fri 5 sat 6 sun 7    Echo  Set InfHeader    Echo  Set InfSectionOrder    Echo  Set InfFooter    2  Echo  Set InfFooter1    Echo  Set InfFooter2    Echo  Set InfFooter3    Echo  Set InfFooter4    Echo  Set Cabinet  OFF  Echo  Set Compress  OFF  Echo  Set DoNotCopyFiles  ON  Echo  Set RptFileName  NUL     gt   Temp   foo ddf  Goto  Eof   GetDate Set  tf  Temp    random   Makecab  D InfFileName   tf    F   Temp   foo ddf   gt NUL For  F  usebackq tokens 1-7 delims       a In    tf    Do   Set  A  year   g month   b day 1  c-100 weekday   a  Set  A  hour 1  d-100 minute 1  e-100 second 1  f-100   Del   tf    gt NUL 2 gt  amp 1 Goto  Eof   3 W32TM - uses command switches introduced in Vista so will not work on windows 2003 XP    echo off setlocal call  w32dow day ow echo  day ow  pause exit  b 0 endlocal  w32dow  RrnVar  setlocal  rem    prints the day of the week rem    works on Vista and above   rem    getting ansi date   days passed from 1st jan 1601     timer server hour and current hour FOR  F  tokens 4 5 delims        D in   w32tm  stripchart  computer localhost   samples 1   period 1  dataonly  packetinfo  find  Transmit Timestamp      do    set  ANSI DATE   D   set   TIMESERVER HOURS   E     set   LOCAL HOURS  TIME  0 2   if   TIMESERVER HOURS  0 1 0  EQU  00  set TIMESERVER HOURS  TIMESERVER HOURS  1 1  if   LOCAL HOURS  0 1 0  EQU  00  set LOCAL HOURS  LOCAL HOURS  1 1  set  a OFFSET TIMESERVER HOURS-LOCAL HOURS  rem    day of the week will be the modulus of 7 of local ansi date  1 rem    we need need  1 because Monday will be calculated as 0 rem     1st jan 1601 was Monday  rem    if abs offset  gt 12 we are in different days with the time server  IF  OFFSET 0 GTR 120 set  a DOW  ANSI DATE 1   7 1 IF  OFFSET 0 LSS -120 set  a DOW  ANSI DATE-1   7 1 IF  OFFSET 0 LEQ 120 IF  OFFSET 0 GEQ -120 set  a DOW ANSI DATE  7 1   rem echo Day of the week   DOW   endlocal  amp  if    1  neq     set    1  DOW    else echo  DOW    4  bat jscript hybrid  must be saved as  bat      if   x     y   end        jscript comment          echo off  for  f    d in   cscript   E JScript   nologo    f0    do echo   d  exit  b 0         end comment             WScript Echo  new Date  getDay       5  bat vbscript hybrid  must be saved as  bat     sub echo str   end sub echo off   gt nul 2 gt  amp 1   copy  Y  windir  System32 doskey exe   exe  gt nul    amp  echo     amp  for  f   w in   cscript  nologo  E vbscript   dpfn0   do echo day of the week   w   amp  echo    amp  del  q    exe   gt nul 2 gt  amp 1   amp  exit  b  WScript Echo Weekday Date  WScript Quit   6 powershell can be downloaded from microsoft Available by default in everything form win7 and above    echo off setlocal for  f   d in    powershell  Get-Date  DayOfWeek Value      do set dow   d  echo day of the week    dow  endlocal   7 WMIC already used as an answer but just want to have a full reference And with cleared  lt CR gt     echo off setlocal for  f  delims     a in   wmic path win32 localtime get dayofweek  format list    do for  f  delims     d in     a   do set   d  echo day of the week    dayofweek  endlocal   9 Selfcompiled jscript net  must be saved as  bat     if   X     Y   end         silent line that start jscript comment          echo off                                                compile the script                                              setlocal if exist    n0 exe  goto  skip compilation  set  frm  SystemRoot  Microsoft NET Framework      searching the latest installed  net framework for  f  tokens   delims     v in   dir  b  s  a d  o -n   SystemRoot  Microsoft NET Framework v     do       if exist    v jsc exe            rem    the javascript net compiler         set  jsc    dpsnfxv jsc exe          goto  break loop         echo jsc exe not found  amp  amp  exit  b 0  break loop   call  jsc   nologo  out    n0 exe     dpsfnx0                                                 end of compilation                                               skip compilation     n0 exe   exit  b 0          end of jscript comment         import System  import System IO   var dt DateTime Now   Console WriteLine dt DayOfWeek

User · Answer

ECHO OFF REM GET DAY OF WEEK VIA DATE TO JULIAN DAY NUMBER CONVERSION REM ANTONIO PEREZ AYALA REM GET MONTH  DAY  YEAR VALUES AND ELIMINATE LEFT ZEROS FOR  F  TOKENS 1-3 DELIMS      A IN    DATE    DO SET  A MM 10  A    100  DD 10  B    100  YY   C REM CALCULATE JULIAN DAY NUMBER  THEN DAY OF WEEK IF  MM  LSS 3 SET  A MM  12  YY- 1 SET  A A YY 100  B A 4  C 2-A B  E 36525  YY 4716  100  F 306  MM 1  10  JDN C DD E F-1524 SET  A DOW  JDN 1   7   DOW is 0 for Sunday  1 for Monday  etc

User · Answer

I have this solution working for me   Create a file named dayOfWeek vbs in the same dir where the cmd file will go   dayOfWeek vbs contains a single line   wscript stdout write weekdayname weekday date     or  if you want day number instead of name   wscript stdout write weekday date    The cmd file will have this line   For  F   A In   CScript dayOfWeek vbs   NoLogo   Do Set dayName   A   Now you can use variable dayName like   robocopy c  inetpub   DCStorage1 Share1 WebServer InetPub  dayName   S  XD history logs

User · Answer

Locale-dependent version   In some environments  the following will extract the day name from the date   set dayname  date  0 3    It assumes that the day name is the first part of  date    Depending on the machine settings  though  the substring part   0 3  would need to change   A statement such as this would dump to a file with a three character day name   set logfile  date  0 3  log echo some stuff  gt   logfile    Locale-independent version  If you need it less dependent on the current machine s day format  another way of doing it would be to write a tiny application that prints the day of the week   Then use the output of that program from the batch file   For example  the following C application prints dayN where N 0  6    include  lt stdio h gt   include  lt time h gt   int main  int argc  char  argv          time t curtime     struct tm   tmval      time   amp curtime       tmval   localtime   amp curtime          print dayN   Or use a switch statement and print       the actual day name if you want    printf   day d   tmval- gt tm wday        If the above were compiled and linked as myday exe  then you could use it from a batch file like this   for  f   d in   myday exe   do set logfile   d log echo some stuff  gt   logfile

User · Answer

Another spin on this topic   The below script displays a few days around the current  with day-of-week prefix   At the core is the standalone  dpack routine that encodes the date into a value whose modulo 7 reveals the day-of-week per ISO 8601 standards  Mon    0    Also provided is  dunpk which is the inverse function    echo off amp  setlocal enabledelayedexpansion rem 10 23 2018 daydate bat  Most recent version at paulhoule com daydate rem Example of date manipulation within a  BAT file  rem This is accomplished by first packing the date into a single number  rem This demo  bat displays dates surrounding the current date  prefixed rem with the day-of-week   set days 0Mon1Tue2Wed3Thu4Fri5Sat6Sun call  dgetl y m d call  dpack p  y   m   d  for  l   o in  -3 1 3  do     set  a od p   o   call  dunpk y m d  od    set  a dow od  7   for   d in   dow   do set day  days    d   amp  set day  day   3    echo  day   y   m   d    exit  b   rem gets local date returning year month day as separate variables rem in   1  2  3 var names for returned year month day  dgetl setlocal amp  set  z   for  f  skip 1    a in   wmic os get localdatetime   do set z  z   a set  a y  z  0 4   m 1 z  4 2    100  d 1 z  6 2    100 endlocal amp  set  a  1  y    2  m    3  d  amp  exit  b   rem packs date  y m d  into count of days since 1 1 1  0  n  rem in   1 return var name   2  y  1  n    3 m  1  12    4 d  1  31  rem out  set  1  days since 1 1 1  modulo 7 is weekday  Mon  0   dpack setlocal enabledelayedexpansion set mtb xxx  0 31 59 90120151181212243273304334 amp  set  a r  3 3 set  a t  2- 12- 3  10  r 365   2-1   4  mtb   r  3  t 4- t 100-t 400 -1 endlocal amp  set  1  r  amp  exit  b   rem inverse of date packer rem in   1  2  3 var names for returned year month day rem  4  packed date  large decimal number  eg 736989   dunpk setlocal amp  set  a y  4 366  y  y 146097 3  y  146097-60  36524 set  a y  y 1461 3  y  1461-60  365  d y  366 1  y  366 set e 31 60 91 121 152 182 213 244 274 305 335 set m 1 amp  for   x in   e   do if  d  gtr   x set  a m  1  d  d -  x endlocal amp  set  a  1  y    2  m    3  d  amp  exit  b

User · Answer

This works for me   FOR  F  tokens 3    a in   robocopy   find  Started    DO SET TODAY   a

User · Answer

I am in the US  I can run this code in Windows 7  Windows 2008 R2  Windows Server 2003  Windows XP  All OS s are current with Windows Updates and patches   All with short date setting without ddd  or dddd   day of week     echo off for  f   a in   date  t   do set DAY   a echo  echo The Day Is   DAY  echo    If today is Thursday  it would output  The Day Is  Thu    This returns the day on all 4 Windows versions I have tested on  And only the day  When I changed my short date setup to be  ddd  M d yyyy   my output would show the day with a comma  e g  Thu   which tells me this code does use the short date format  But what also may be happening is that if the short date does not contain the day of week  it may look to the long date format which on all 4 machines I tested on  have dddd in the format

User · Answer

Was looking to do this myself and saw complaints about blank lines   rem Make the win32 localtime output all one line  though some versions may contain blank lines as well  rem So ignore blank lines and just pick up the number after the equal sign  for  f  delims   tokens 2    a in   wmic path win32 localtime get dayofweek  format list   do       rem Increment the DOW as it is documented to be a zero-based index starting with Sunday      set  a DayOfWeekIndex   a 1   rem Also get name day of week  The DOW coming in is now a one-based index  rem This is used to reference the  array  of week day names  set DayOfWeekNames Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat for  f  tokens  DayOfWeekIndex     b in    DayOfWeekNames    do       set DayOfWeekName   b

User · Answer

A version using MSHTA and javascript  Change  jsfunc  to whateve jscript function you want to call   echo off   Invoke a javascript function using mhta  set jsfunc new Date   getDay   set dialog  about  lt script gt resizeTo 0 0  new ActiveXObject  Scripting FileSystemObject    set dialog  dialog GetStandardStream 1  WriteLine  jsfunc   close    lt  script gt    for  f  tokens   delims     p in   mshta exe  dialog    do set ndow   p    get dow string from array of strings   for  f  tokens  ndow      d in   Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun   do set dow   d   echo dow is    ndow    dow  pause

User · Answer

I Improved Aacini  Answer  to make it Echo Full day of week Name   So here s my Code   echo off for  F  skip 1 tokens 2-4 delims  -      A in   date   lt  NUL   do      for  F  tokens 1-3 delims      a in    date    do         set   A   a       set   B   b       set   C   c        set  A mm 10 mm     100  dd 10 dd     100 if  mm  lss 3 set  A mm  12  yy- 1 set  A a yy 100  b a 4  c 4-a b  e 36525  yy 4716  100  f 306  mm 1  10 dow  c dd e f-1523   7   1 for  F  tokens  dow     a in   Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday    do set dow   a echo Today is  dow  gt  Today is  dow  txt  echo Today is  dow  Pause gt Nul  REM Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat REM Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

[windows] Setting a windows batch file variable to the day of the week

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