How to append a date in batch files

Question

I have the following line in a batch file (that runs on an old Windows 2000 box):

7z a QuickBackup.zip *.backup

How do I append the date to

Answer 1

You can also access the date via the variable %DATE%

When testing my system %DATE% produces ffffd dd/mm/yyyy

you can use substring operators to produce the format you desire

ie. running the following on MON 11/12/2018 with US regional settings

%DATE:~3,3% %DATE:~0,3% %DATE:~7,2%

Will produce an output:

11 Mon 12

the substring arguments are
%*variable*:~*startpos*,*numberofchars*%

Answer 2

I've found two ways that work regardless of the date settings.

On my pc, date/t returns 2009-05-27

You can either access the registry and read the regional settings (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International)

Or use a vbscript. This is the ugly batch file/vbscript hybrid I created some time ago....

@Echo Off
set rnd=%Random%
set randfilename=x%rnd%.vbs

::create temp vbscript file
Echo Dim DayofWeek(7) >  %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo DayofWeek(1)="Sun" >> %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo DayofWeek(2)="Mon" >> %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo DayofWeek(3)="Tue" >> %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo DayofWeek(4)="Wed" >> %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo DayofWeek(5)="Thu" >> %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo DayofWeek(6)="Fri" >> %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo DayofWeek(7)="Sat" >> %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo DayofWeek(0)=DayofWeek(Weekday(now)) >> %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo Mon=Left(MonthName(Month(now),1),3) >> %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo MonNumeric=right ( "00" ^& Month(now) , 2) >> %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo wscript.echo ( Year(Now) ^& " " ^& MonNumeric ^& " " ^& Mon ^& " "  _ >> %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo ^& right("00" ^& Day(now),2) ^& " "^& dayofweek(0) ^& " "^& _ >> %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo right("00" ^& Hour(now),2)) _ >> %temp%\%randfilename%
Echo ^&":"^& Right("00" ^& Minute(now),2) ^&":"^& Right("00" ^& Second(Now),2)  >> %temp%\%randfilename%

::set the output into vars
if "%1" == "" FOR /f "usebackq tokens=1,2,3,4,5,6" %%A in (`start /wait /b cscript //nologo %temp%\%randfilename%`) do Set Y2KYear=%%A& Set MonthNumeric=%%B& Set Month=%%C& Set Day=%%D& Set DayofWeek=%%E& Set Time=%%F
set year=%y2kyear:~2,2%

::cleanup
del %temp%\%randfilename%

It's not pretty, but it works.