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

by

%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:

  1. 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 >nul
reg add "HKCU\Control Panel\International" /v sShortDate /d "ddd" /f >nul
set DOW=%DATE%
reg copy "HKCU\Control Panel\International-Temp" "HKCU\Control Panel\International" /f >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.

  2. 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.

More Related Contents:

  1. How can you find and replace text in a file using the Windows command-line environment?
  2. How do I get the result of a command in a variable in windows?
  3. Batch character escaping
  4. How to run a PowerShell script without displaying a window?
  5. Can Windows’ built-in ZIP compression be scripted?
  6. Windows batch file file download from a URL
  7. How to run a PowerShell script within a Windows batch file
  8. How to create batch file in Windows using “start” with a path and command with spaces
  9. Dealing with quotes in Windows batch scripts
  10. Windows batch: sleep [duplicate]
  11. How can I run a windows batch file but hide the command window?
  12. How to expand a CMD shell variable twice (recursively)
  13. Single line with multiple commands using Windows batch file
  14. Where is “START” searching for executables?
  15. What does %~d0 mean in a Windows batch file?
  16. How to run a PowerShell script from a batch file
  17. How can you zip or unzip from the script using ONLY Windows’ built-in capabilities?
  18. Run batch file as a Windows service
  19. windows batch SET inside IF not working
  20. How can I run a program from a batch file without leaving the console open after the program starts?
  21. Batch files: List all files in a directory with relative paths
  22. Windows batch script to parse CSV file and output a text file
  23. How to count no of lines in text file and store the value into a variable using batch script?
  24. How to test if a path is a file or directory in Windows batch file?
  25. Split string with string as delimiter
  26. How to change Screen buffer size in Windows Command Prompt from batch script
  27. Delete all files and folders in a directory
  28. Batch goto loses errorlevel
  29. Escape percent signs in given variables
  30. Out of a git console: how do I execute a batch file and then return to git console?

Leave a Comment