batch - execute command for every file with specific creation date - windows

Question

got this piece of code:
forfiles /P %ParentFolder% /S /M %Format% /C "cmd /c %exeFile% #path"
executing some exe for every file matching format as parameter.
any way to add "creation date" as a condition to run command via CMD?
something like :
for all files in directory (recursive) X if creation date newer then 1 day ago do (run) some exe with this file's path as param

Answer 1

This is not possible with forfiles, because, when the /D option is provided, it only regards the last modification date only (not even the modification time).
Unfortunately, there are no native commands for date/time maths, so I suggest to switch to a language that is capable of that; for instance, PowerShell, VBScript, JavaScript (which are all native to Windows past XP).
In case the modification date could be used, and a simple check with the date of today is sufficient, the following forfiles command line could be used:
forfiles /S /P "%ParentFolder%" /M "%Format%" /D +0 /C "cmd /C \"%exeFile%\" #path"
The /D option with a non-negative number lets forfiles return files that have been modified the given number of days after today or later (although you would need a time-machine; hence I consider this a design flaw). For +0 as the given number of days, all matching files modified today are returned, because forfiles /D only checks the modification date but does not care about the modification time.
If a simple equality check of the creation date with the date of today is fine for you, it can be done in batch-file scripting quite easily though (see all the explanatory rem remarks for how the following script works):
#echo off
setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion
rem // Define constants here:
set "ParentFolder=."
set "Format=*.*"
set "exeFile=" & rem // (full path to executable file)
set "tmpFile=%TEMP%\%~n0_%RANDOM%.tmp"
rem // Create a temporary file and retrieve its creation date:
2> nul del "%tmpFile%" & > "%tmpFile%" break & set "TODAY="
for /F "skip=5" %%J in ('dir /N /4 /-C /T:C "%tmpFile%"') do (
if not defined TODAY set "TODAY=%%J" & del "%tmpFile%"
)
rem // Change to predefined parent directory:
pushd "%ParentFolder%" && (
rem // Return all files recursively:
for /F "delims=" %%I in ('dir /B /S /A:-D "%Format%"') do (
rem // Determine the creation date for the current file:
set "FIRST=#"
for /F "skip=5" %%J in ('dir /N /-C /T:C "%%I"') do (
rem // Regard line listing file only, ignore summary lines:
if defined FIRST (
set "FIRST="
rem // Check creation date against today:
if "%%J"=="%TODAY%" (
rem // Return files created today:
echo "%%I" has been created today.
rem // Run external program on found file:
if defined exeFile "%exeFile%" "%%I"
)
)
)
)
rem // Restore previous working directory:
popd
)
endlocal
exit /B
I am using two dir command lines here:
the first one returns a bare list of files recursively (/S; no directories because of /A:-D) without any dates/times, headers and footers, due to switch /B; not using this switch would lead to header and footer lines for the whole output and for every iterated sub-directory also, so the output would be quite complicated to be parsed;
the second one receives each file returned by the first one; since there is no /B but the /N option, the file creation date/time is returned (/T:C); for every file the output looks like this:
Volume in drive D is DATA
Volume Serial Number is 0000-0000
Directory of D:\Data
2016/09/29 16:00 1024 current_file.txt
1 File(s) 1024 bytes
0 Dir(s) 1099511623680 bytes free
the first token of the sixth line constituting the creation date is split off and compared against the current date %DATE%; to ignore the header, the skip=5 option of the for /F loop is used; to ignore the summary lines, the variable FIRST is used;
Note that the date format is locale-dependent; as long as there appear no spaces in the date, this is no problem as the current date is also determined by the dir command applied on a temporary file.

Answer 2

Looking at the forfiles /? shows the switch /D that will exclude files that are younger (/d -<days>) or older (/d +<days>) than the given value for <days>.
As you want the files from today, you would set <date> to 0.
Notice, that this will look on the changed date!
Other way would be to use a for /r-loop and get a list of the creation date with dir /T:C ; to sort it add /O-D. Then separate that using a for /f loop to get the lines of the output of dir and another one to separate it (possibly easier without the nested loops).
You can than compare the creation date with %date% or when using one day=24 hrs compare the creation time with %time% additionally.