need a programmer for simple task

[ThePiston]

I'm making a scheduled task out of a .cmd file and this is what I have so far for creating a directory:

md D:\OfficeMate_"date"

Where "date" is I would like the actual date to be inserted. What's the correct parameter for that?

 

[WobbleWobble]

md D:\OfficeMate_%date:~4,2%-%date:~7,2%-%date:~10%

%date% is an enviroment variable that would output the date as "Fri 12/30/2005", you can try it by doing "echo %date%".

But because the output has backslashes in it, you need to do a substring and parse only the numbers.

 

[Shuxclams]

There a couple of ways to do it SHELL and VB - here is the SHELL





SHUX

 

[ThePiston]

WobbleWobble, thanks, your code did something, but I don't know what.... nothing happened in the D directory.

Shuxclams, thanks, but that script just created this folder: "OfficeMate_0".

 

[Shuxclams]

My results with my script test.bat





Hope that works for you, its working for me.




SHUX

 

[WobbleWobble]

When you type the following, what do you see? I noticed that my work computer outputs "Fri 12/30/2005" while my home computer outputs "30/12/2005". That's likely because of regional settings. It makes a difference because we're manipulating specific positions of the string.

Type the following from the code box in a command prompt

 

[ThePiston]

WobbleWobble, it echos "12/31/2005"

SHUX, I tried it as a .bat file and changed the E:\ to D:\ and it still just gives a folder named "OfficeMate_1" with a folder inside that one named "-00-". I'm running XP Pro. Any ideas?

 

[WobbleWobble]

Now try " echo %date:~0,2%-%date:~3,2%-%date:~6% "

That should give you 12-31-2005, if so, then you can go "md D:\OfficeMate_%date:~0,2%-%date:~3,2%-%date:~6%"

Shuxclams's code extends it a bit futher by checking if folder exists. It'd be what's in the code box.

The other simple way of doing it is simply changing your Regional Settings in Windows. Change the date seperator from "/" to "-", since you can't have "/" in files names. That way you can simply use "md %date%"

 

[Shuxclams]

Not sure why it is giving you that error, or misname. I suspect it is possibly part of the timezone issue, I use this on our network which is Win2K/XP mixed in AD. I'll look into it some more however....









SHUX

 

[Shuxclams]

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
Now try " echo %date:~0,2%-%date:~3,2%-%date:~6% "

That should give you 12-31-2005, if so, then you can go "md D:\OfficeMate_%date:~0,2%-%date:~3,2%-%date:~6%"

Shuxclams's code extends it a bit futher by checking if folder exists. It'd be what's in the code box.

The other simple way of doing it is simply changing your Regional Settings in Windows. Change the date seperator from "/" to "-", since you can't have "/" in files names. That way you can simply use "md %date%"

Funny thing is when I reformat the example I get a folder named 'OfficeMate_Sa- 1-' So there you have it.



SHUX

 

[WobbleWobble]

I think it's a regional settings issue. The text he gets from a %date% is different than yours.

What do you get when you do a echo %date% Shux?

 

[Shuxclams]

Sat 12/31/2005









SHUX

 

[WobbleWobble]

That's why the code may not work for you, because when I do an echo %date% I get "02/01/2006". Just change the locations of the substrings and it'll work for anyone else.

Be sure to test it on the actual systems you'll be deploying it on, as you may also run into these differences. I'm sure someone else can create a script to replace the "/" with "-" by doing a find, rather than absoute substring.

 

[ThePiston]

Success! thanks guys, here is final code if anyone is searching on this:
@Echo OFF
set dd=%date%
IF NOT EXIST "D:\OfficeMate Backups\OfficeMate %date:~0,2%-%date:~3,2%-%date:~6%" md "D:\OfficeMate Backups\OfficeMate %date:~0,2%-%date:~3,2%-%date:~6%"

xcopy D:\desktop\*.* "D:\OfficeMate Backups\OfficeMate %date:~0,2%-%date:~3,2%-%date:~6%\*.*" /s /e /h /v /d /i /r /y