Creating a file name as a timestamp in a batch job

Question

We have a batch job that runs every day and copies a file to a pickup folder  I want to also take a copy of that file and drop it into an archive folder with the filename   yyyy-MM-dd log   What s the easiest way to do this in a Windows batch job   I m basically looking for an equivalent of this Unix command   cp source log  date   F  log

User · Answer

I know this is an old post  but there is a FAR simpler answer  though maybe it only works in newer versions of windows    Just use the  t parameter for the DATE and TIME dos commands to only show the date or time and not prompt you to set it  like this    echo off echo Starting test batch file  gt  testlog txt date  t  gt  gt  testlog txt time  t  gt  gt  testlog txt

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This works well with  my  German locale  should be possible to adjust it to your needs     forfiles  p  PATH   m  filepattern   c  cmd  c ren  file   DATE  6 4  DATE  3 2  DATE  0 2   file

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Create a file with the current date as filename  ex  2008-11-08 dat   echo hello  gt   date  dat       With the current date but without the  -   ex  20081108 dat   echo hello  gt   date -   dat

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CP source log  DATE  -4 - DATE  4 2 - DATE  7 2  log   But it s locale dependent   I m not sure if  DATE  is localized  or depends on the format specified for the short date in Windows   Here is a locale-independent way to extract the current date from this answer  but it depends on WMIC and FOR  F   FOR  F   A IN   WMIC OS GET LocalDateTime    FINDSTR      DO  SET B   A CP source log  B  0 4 - B  4 2 - B  6 2  log

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Because the idea of tearing  DATE  and  TIME  apart and mashing them back together seems fragile at best  here s an alternative that uses a powershell oneliner   for  f  i in   powershell -c  get-date -format yyyy-MM-dd--HH-mm-ss    do  set DATETIME  i set LOGFILE my-script- DATETIME  txt   Reference for get-date is here  with format options for both  NET-style and UNIX-style

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I frequently use this  and put everything into a single copy command  The following copies example txt as example YYYYMMDD HHMMSS txt and of course you can modify it to suit your preferred format  The quotes are only necessary if there are any spaces in the filespec  If you want to reuse the exact same date timestamp  you d need to store it in a variable   copy   path  example txt    path    date  10 4  date  4 2  date  7 2   time  0 2  time  3 2  time  6 2  txt

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1  You can download GNU coreutils which comes with GNU date  2  you can use VBScript  which makes date manipulation easier in Windows   Set objFS   CreateObject  Scripting FileSystemObject   strFolder    c  test  Set objFolder   objFS GetFolder strFolder  current   Now mth   Month current  d   Day current  yr   Year current  If Len mth   lt 2 Then     mth  0  amp mth End If If Len d   lt  2 Then     d    0  amp d End If timestamp yr  amp   -   amp  mth  amp  -  amp  d For Each strFile In objFolder Files     strFileName   strFile Name     If InStr strFileName  file name here    gt  0 Then         BaseName   objFS GetBaseName strFileName          Extension   objFS GetExtensionName strFileName          NewName   BaseName  amp   -   amp  timestamp  amp       amp  Extension         strFile Name   NewName     End If Next   Run the script as   c  test gt  cscript  nologo myscript vbs

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You can simply detect the current local format and can get the date in your format  for example     for 30 10 2016 dd MM yyyy if  date  2 1     set d  date  -4  date  3 2  date   2    for 10 30 2016 MM dd yyyy if  date  2 1     set d  date  -4  date   2  date  3 2    for 2016-10-30 yyyy-MM-dd if  date  4 1   - set d  date   4  date  5 2  date  -2    variable  d  have now value  2016103  yyyyMMdd  set t  time     set t  t       variable  t  have now time without delimiters cp source log  d   t  log

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used Martin s suggestion with a little tweak to add time stamp to the file name   forfiles  p  foldername   m rsync2 log  c  cmd  c ren  file  DATE  6 4  DATE  3 2  DATE  0 2   time  -11 2 - time  -8 2 - time  -5 2 - file   For the 10 17 21 23 10 2019 The result is      20191023 10-17-21-rsync2 log

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This worked for me and was a filename-safe solution  though it generates a MM-dd-YYYY format    C   set SAVESTAMP  DATE   -   TIME   -  C   set SAVESTAMP  SAVESTAMP     C   set SAVESTAMP  SAVESTAMP      jpg C   echo  SAVESTAMP  11-04-2012 20-52-42 79 jpg   The first command takes a DATE and replaces   with -  takes the TIME and replaces   with -  and combines them into DATE TIME format  The second set statement removes any spaces  and the third set replaces   with   and appends the  jpg extension   The above code is used in a little script that pulls images from a security IP Camera for further processing    while set SAVESTAMP  DATE   -   TIME   -  set SAVESTAMP  SAVESTAMP     set SAVESTAMP  SAVESTAMP      jpg wget-1 10 2 exe --tries 0 -O  SAVESTAMP  http   admin  lt password gt   lt ip address gt   lt port gt  snapshot cgi timeout 1 GOTO while

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Here is a locale independent solution  copy to a file named SetDateTimeComponents cmd     echo off REM This script taken from the following URL  REM http   www winnetmag com windowsscripting article articleid 9177 windowsscripting 9177 html  REM Create the date and time elements  for  f  tokens 1-7 delims   -      i in   echo exit  cmd  q  k prompt  d  t    do      for  f  tokens 2-4 delims  -    skip 1    a in   echo   date   do         set dow   i       set   a   j       set   b   k       set   c   l       set hh   m       set min   n       set ss   o         REM Let s see the result  echo  dow   yy - mm - dd     hh   min   ss    I put all my  cmd scripts into the same folder   SCRIPTROOT    any script that needs date time values will call SetDateTimeComponents cmd as in the following example   setlocal   echo Initializing    set SCRIPTROOT   dp0 set ERRLOG C  Oopsies err     Log start time call   SCRIPTROOT  SetDateTimeComponents cmd   gt nul  echo      dow   yy - mm - dd     hh   min   ss    Start      gt  gt   ERRLOG      Perform some long running action and log errors to ERRLOG      Log end time call   SCRIPTROOT  SetDateTimeComponents cmd   gt nul  echo      dow   yy - mm - dd     hh   min   ss    End      gt  gt   ERRLOG    As the example shows  you can call SetDateTimeComponents cmd whenever you need to update the date time values  Hiding the time parsing script in it s own SetDateTimeComponents cmd file is a nice way to hide the ugly details  and  more importantly  avoid typos

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I put together a little C program to print out the current timestamp  locale-safe  no bad characters       Then  I use the FOR command to save the result in an environment variable      Get the timestamp for  f   x in    timestamp   do set TIMESTAMP   x     Use it to generate a filename for  r   x in    processed    do move     x     archived    nx- TIMESTAMP    xx    Here s a link   https   github com HarryPehkonen dos-timestamp

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I know this thread is old but I just want to add this here because it helped me alot trying to figure this all out and its clean  The nice thing about this is you could put it in a loop for a batch file that s always running  Server up-time log or something  That s what I use it for anyways  I hope this helps someone someday    setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion  echo off  call  timestamp freshtime freshdate echo  freshdate  -  freshtime  - Some data  gt  gt    freshdate - Somelog log    timestamp set hour  time  0 2  if   hour  0 1          set hour 0 hour  1 1  set min  time  3 2  if   min  0 1          set min 0 min  1 1  set secs  time  6 2  if   secs  0 1          set secs 0 secs  1 1  set FreshTime  hour   min   secs   set year  date  -4  set month  date  4 2  if   month  0 1          set month 0 month  1 1  set day  date  7 2  if   day  0 1          set day 0 day  1 1  set FreshDate  month   day   year

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For French Locale  France  ONLY  be careful because   appears in the date    echo  DATE  08 09 2013   For our problem of log file  here is my proposal for French Locale ONLY   SETLOCAL set LOGFILE DATE  DATE  6 4   DATE  3 2   DATE  0 2  set LOGFILE TIME  TIME  0 2   TIME  3 2  set LOGFILE log- LOGFILE DATE - LOGFILE TIME  txt rem log-2014 05 19-22 18 txt command  gt   LOGFILE

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Maybe this can help   echo off  prompt set date  d   set time  t h h h echo some log  gt  gt   date   time  log exit   or  echo off set v  date  log echo some log  gt  gt   v

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This will ensure that the output is a 2-digit value   you can rearrange the output to your liking and test by un-commenting the diagnostics section  Enjoy    I borrowed a lot of this from other forums         ------------------ Date and Time Modifier ------------------------   echo off setlocal     THIS CODE WILL DISPLAY A 2-DIGIT TIMESTAMP FOR USE IN APPENDING FILENAMES     CREATE VARIABLE  TIMESTAMP   for  f  tokens 1-8 delims    -      i in   echo exit  cmd  q  k prompt  D  T    do      for  f  tokens 2-4 skip 1 delims  -       a in   echo   date   do   set dow   i set   a   j set   b   k set   c   l set hh   m set min   n set sec   o set hsec   p         ensure that hour is always 2 digits  if  hh   0 set hh 00 if  hh   1 set hh 01 if  hh   2 set hh 02 if  hh   3 set hh 03 if  hh   4 set hh 04 if  hh   5 set hh 05 if  hh   6 set hh 06 if  hh   7 set hh 07 if  hh   8 set hh 08 if  hh   9 set hh 09      --------- TIME STAMP DIAGNOSTICS -------------------------     Un-comment these lines to test output     echo dayOfWeek    dow     echo year    yy     echo month    mm     echo day    dd     echo hour    hh     echo minute    min     echo second    sec     echo hundredthsSecond    hsec     echo     echo Hello      echo Today is  dow    mm   dd       echo     echo      echo     echo     pause     --------- END TIME STAMP DIAGNOSTICS ----------------------     assign timeStamp     Add the date and time parameters as necessary -   yy-mm-dd-dow-min-sec-hsec    endlocal  amp  set timeStamp  yy  mm  dd   hh - min - sec  echo  timeStamp

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For big zip files for deployment  I use quarter hours   No one else on this page had mentioned it before  so I ll put my small script here   set  a  quarter hours  time  0 2  4    time  3 2    15  set  zip file release  DATE  -4   DATE  4 2   DATE  7 2   quarter hours  zip    It doesn t zero pad quarter hours from midnight to 5am yet  but it still makes it so you can have a stamped release multiple times a day with few collisions   Hope that helps

[windows] Creating a file name as a timestamp in a batch job

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