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

Question

I have a windows batch file that runs daily. Wish to log data into a file and want to rotate it (i.e. having at most the last 7 days worth of data).
Looked into the commands DATE and DELIMS - Cannot figure out a solution.
Is there a simple solution to create a file name that contains the day of the week i.e. 0 for monday etc.
Or do I have to resort to some better shell script.

Answer 1

%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:
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.
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.

Answer 2

few more ways:
1.Robocopy not available in XP but can be downloaded form with win 2003 resource tool kit .Also might depend on localization:
#echo off
setlocal
for /f "skip=8 tokens=2,3,4,5,6,7,8 delims=: " %%D in ('robocopy /l * \ \ /ns /nc /ndl /nfl /np /njh /XF * /XD *') do (
set "dow=%%D"
set "month=%%E"
set "day=%%F"
set "HH=%%G"
set "MM=%%H"
set "SS=%%I"
set "year=%%J"
)
echo Day of the week: %dow%
endlocal
2.MAKECAB - works on every windows machine (but creates a small temp file).Function provided by carlos:
#Echo Off
Call :GetDate.Init
Rem :GetDate.Init should be called one time in the code before call to :Getdate
Call :GetDate
Echo weekday:%weekday%
Goto :EOF
:GetDate.Init
Set /A "jan=1,feb=2,mar=3,apr=4,may=5,jun=6,jul=7,aug=8,sep=9,oct=10,nov=11,dec=12"
Set /A "mon=1,tue=2,wed=3,thu=4,fri=5,sat=6,sun=7"
(
Echo .Set InfHeader=""
Echo .Set InfSectionOrder=""
Echo .Set InfFooter="%%2"
Echo .Set InfFooter1=""
Echo .Set InfFooter2=""
Echo .Set InfFooter3=""
Echo .Set InfFooter4=""
Echo .Set Cabinet="OFF"
Echo .Set Compress="OFF"
Echo .Set DoNotCopyFiles="ON"
Echo .Set RptFileName="NUL"
) >"%Temp%\~foo.ddf"
Goto :Eof
:GetDate
Set "tf=%Temp%\~%random%"
Makecab /D InfFileName="%tf%" /F "%Temp%\~foo.ddf" >NUL
For /F "usebackq tokens=1-7 delims=: " %%a In ("%tf%") Do (
Set /A "year=%%g,month=%%b,day=1%%c-100,weekday=%%a"
Set /A "hour=1%%d-100,minute=1%%e-100,second=1%%f-100")
Del "%tf%" >NUL 2>&1
Goto :Eof
3.W32TM - uses command switches introduced in Vista so will not work on windows 2003/XP:
#echo off
setlocal
call :w32dow day_ow
echo %day_ow%
pause
exit /b 0
endlocal
:w32dow [RrnVar]
setlocal
rem :: prints the day of the week
rem :: works on Vista and above
rem :: getting ansi date ( days passed from 1st jan 1601 ) , timer server hour and current hour
FOR /F "tokens=4,5 delims=:( " %%D in ('w32tm /stripchart /computer:localhost /samples:1 /period:1 /dataonly /packetinfo^|find "Transmit Timestamp:" ') do (
set "ANSI_DATE=%%D"
set "TIMESERVER_HOURS=%%E"
)
set "LOCAL_HOURS=%TIME:~0,2%"
if "%TIMESERVER_HOURS:~0,1%0" EQU "00" set TIMESERVER_HOURS=%TIMESERVER_HOURS:~1,1%
if "%LOCAL_HOURS:~0,1%0" EQU "00" set LOCAL_HOURS=%LOCAL_HOURS:~1,1%
set /a OFFSET=TIMESERVER_HOURS-LOCAL_HOURS
rem :: day of the week will be the modulus of 7 of local ansi date +1
rem :: we need need +1 because Monday will be calculated as 0
rem :: 1st jan 1601 was Monday
rem :: if abs(offset)>12 we are in different days with the time server
IF %OFFSET%0 GTR 120 set /a DOW=(ANSI_DATE+1)%%7+1
IF %OFFSET%0 LSS -120 set /a DOW=(ANSI_DATE-1)%%7+1
IF %OFFSET%0 LEQ 120 IF %OFFSET%0 GEQ -120 set /a DOW=ANSI_DATE%%7+1
rem echo Day of the week: %DOW%
endlocal & if "%~1" neq "" (set "%~1=%DOW%") else echo %DOW%
4..bat/jscript hybrid (must be saved as .bat):
#if (#x)==(#y) #end /***** jscript comment ******
#echo off
for /f %%d in ('cscript //E:JScript //nologo "%~f0"') do echo %%d
exit /b 0
***** end comment *********/
WScript.Echo((new Date).getDay());
5..bat/vbscript hybrid (must be saved as .bat)
:sub echo(str) :end sub
echo off
'>nul 2>&1|| copy /Y %windir%\System32\doskey.exe '.exe >nul
'& echo/
'& for /f %%w in ('cscript /nologo /E:vbscript %~dpfn0') do echo day of the week %%w
'& echo/
'& del /q "'.exe" >nul 2>&1
'& exit /b
WScript.Echo Weekday(Date)
WScript.Quit
6.powershell can be downloaded from microsoft.Available by default in everything form win7 and above:
#echo off
setlocal
for /f %%d in ('"powershell (Get-Date).DayOfWeek.Value__"') do set dow=%%d
echo day of the week : %dow%
endlocal
7.WMIC already used as an answer but just want to have a full reference.And with cleared <CR>:
#echo off
setlocal
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('wmic path win32_localtime get dayofweek /format:list ') do for /f "delims=" %%d in ("%%a") do set %%d
echo day of the week : %dayofweek%
endlocal
9.Selfcompiled jscript.net (must be saved as .bat):
#if (#X)==(#Y) #end /****** silent line that start jscript comment ******
#echo off
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::: compile the script ::::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
setlocal
if exist "%~n0.exe" goto :skip_compilation
set "frm=%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\"
:: searching the latest installed .net framework
for /f "tokens=* delims=" %%v in ('dir /b /s /a:d /o:-n "%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v*"') do (
if exist "%%v\jsc.exe" (
rem :: the javascript.net compiler
set "jsc=%%~dpsnfxv\jsc.exe"
goto :break_loop
)
)
echo jsc.exe not found && exit /b 0
:break_loop
call %jsc% /nologo /out:"%~n0.exe" "%~dpsfnx0"
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::: end of compilation ::::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:skip_compilation
"%~n0.exe"
exit /b 0
****** end of jscript comment ******/
import System;
import System.IO;
var dt=DateTime.Now;
Console.WriteLine(dt.DayOfWeek);

Answer 3

#ECHO OFF
REM GET DAY OF WEEK VIA DATE TO JULIAN DAY NUMBER CONVERSION
REM ANTONIO PEREZ AYALA
REM GET MONTH, DAY, YEAR VALUES AND ELIMINATE LEFT ZEROS
FOR /F "TOKENS=1-3 DELIMS=/" %%A IN ("%DATE%") DO SET /A MM=10%%A %% 100, DD=10%%B %% 100, YY=%%C
REM CALCULATE JULIAN DAY NUMBER, THEN DAY OF WEEK
IF %MM% LSS 3 SET /A MM+=12, YY-=1
SET /A A=YY/100, B=A/4, C=2-A+B, E=36525*(YY+4716)/100, F=306*(MM+1)/10, JDN=C+DD+E+F-1524
SET /A DOW=(JDN+1)%%7
DOW is 0 for Sunday, 1 for Monday, etc.

Answer 4

I thought that my first answer gives the correct day of week as a number between 0 and 6. However, because you had not indicated why this answer does not give the result you want, I can only guess the reason.
The Batch file below create a log file each day with a digit in the name, 0=Sunday, 1=Monday, etc... The program assume that echo %date% show the date in MM/DD/YYYY format; if this is not the case, just change the position of mm and dd variables in the for command.
#echo off
for /F "tokens=1-3 delims=/" %%a in ("%date%") do set /A mm=10%%a %% 100, dd=10%%b %% 100, yy=%%c
if %mm% lss 3 set /A mm+=12, yy-=1
set /A a=yy/100, b=a/4, c=2-a+b, e=36525*(yy+4716)/100, f=306*(mm+1)/10, dow=(c+dd+e+f-1523)%%7
echo Today log data > Day-%dow%.txt
If this is not what you want, please indicate the problem so I can fix it.
EDIT: The version below get date parts independent of locale settings:
#echo off
for /F "skip=1 tokens=2-4 delims=(-/)" %%A in ('date ^< NUL') do (
for /F "tokens=1-3 delims=/" %%a in ("%date%") do (
set %%A=%%a
set %%B=%%b
set %%C=%%c
)
)
set /A mm=10%mm% %% 100, dd=10%dd% %% 100
if %mm% lss 3 set /A mm+=12, yy-=1
set /A a=yy/100, b=a/4, c=2-a+b, e=36525*(yy+4716)/100, f=306*(mm+1)/10,
dow=(c+dd+e+f-1523)%%7
echo Today log data > Day-%dow%.txt
EDIT: The version below insert day of week as 3-letter short name:
#echo off
for /F "skip=1 tokens=2-4 delims=(-/)" %%A in ('date ^< NUL') do (
for /F "tokens=1-3 delims=/" %%a in ("%date%") do (
set %%A=%%a
set %%B=%%b
set %%C=%%c
)
)
set /A mm=10%mm% %% 100, dd=10%dd% %% 100
if %mm% lss 3 set /A mm+=12, yy-=1
set /A a=yy/100, b=a/4, c=2-a+b, e=36525*(yy+4716)/100, f=306*(mm+1)/10,
dow=(c+dd+e+f-1523)%%7 + 1
for /F "tokens=%dow%" %%a in ("Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat") do set dow=%%a
echo Today log data > Day-%dow%.txt
Regards,
Antonio

Answer 5

This turned out way more complex then I first suspected, and I guess that's what intrigued me, I searched every where and all the methods given wouldnt work on Windows 7.
So I have an alternate solution which uses a Visual Basic Script.
The batch creates and executes the script(DayOfWeek.vbs), assigns the scripts output (Monday, Tuesday etc) to a variable (dow), the variable is then checked and another variable (dpwnum) assigned with the days number, afterwards the VBS is deleted hope it helps:
#echo off
REM Create VBS that will get day of week in same directory as batch
echo wscript.echo WeekdayName(Weekday(Date))>>DayOfWeek.vbs
REM Cycle through output to get day of week i.e monday,tuesday etc
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('cscript /nologo DayOfWeek.vbs') do #set dow=%%a
REM delete vbs
del DayOfWeek.vbs
REM Used for testing outputs days name
echo %dow%
REM Case of the days name is important must have a capital letter at start
REM Check days name and assign value depending
IF %dow%==Monday set downum=0
IF %dow%==Tuesday set downum=1
IF %dow%==Wednesday set downum=2
IF %dow%==Thursday set downum=3
IF %dow%==Friday set downum=4
IF %dow%==Saturday set downum=5
IF %dow%==Sunday set downum=6
REM print the days number 0-mon,1-tue ... 6-sun
echo %downum%
REM set a file name using day of week number
set myfile=%downum%.bak
echo %myfile%
pause
exit
EDIT:
Though I turned to VBS, It can be done in pure batch, took me a while to get it working and a lot of searching lol, but this seems to work:
#echo off
SETLOCAL enabledelayedexpansion
SET /a count=0
FOR /F "skip=1" %%D IN ('wmic path win32_localtime get dayofweek') DO (
if "!count!" GTR "0" GOTO next
set dow=%%D
SET /a count+=1
)
:next
echo %dow%
pause
The only caveat for you on the above batch is that its day of weeks are from 1-7 and not 0-6

Answer 6

This works for me
FOR /F "tokens=3" %%a in ('robocopy ^|find "Started"') DO SET TODAY=%%a

Answer 7

I am in the US. I can run this code in Windows 7, Windows 2008 R2, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP (All OS's are current with Windows Updates and patches). All with short date setting without ddd (or dddd) (day of week).
#echo off
for /f %%a in ('date /t') do set DAY=%%a
echo.
echo The Day Is: %DAY%
echo.
If today is Thursday, it would output "The Day Is: Thu".
This returns the day on all 4 Windows versions I have tested on. And only the day. When I changed my short date setup to be "ddd, M/d/yyyy", my output would show the day with a comma (e.g. Thu,) which tells me this code does use the short date format. But what also may be happening is that if the short date does not contain the day of week, it may look to the long date format which on all 4 machines I tested on, have dddd in the format.

Answer 8

This is not my work (well, I modified it slightly from the example), and it's late to the game, but this works on Server 2003 for me;
#echo off
set daysofweek=Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday,Saturday,Sunday
for /F "skip=2 tokens=2-4 delims=," %%A in ('WMIC Path Win32_LocalTime Get DayOfWeek /Format:csv') do set daynumber=%%A
for /F "tokens=%daynumber% delims=," %%B in ("%daysofweek%") do set day=%%B
Citation: TechSupportForum

Answer 9

First - Copy CON SETUPDAY.001
SET WORKDAY=^Z (very important - no cr/lf)
DATE /T >SETUPDAY.002
COPY SETUPDAY.001+SETUPDAY.002 NEWDAY.BAT >nul
CALL NEWDAY.BAT
SET WEEKDAY=%WORKDAY:~0,3%
SET MDY=%WORKDAY:~4,10%
USE %WEEKDAY% IN YOUR SCRIPT

Answer 10

Locale-dependent version: In some environments, the following will extract the day name from the date:
set dayname=%date:~0,3%
It assumes that the day name is the first part of %date%. Depending on the machine settings, though, the substring part (~0,3) would need to change.
A statement such as this would dump to a file with a three character day name:
set logfile=%date:~0,3%.log
echo some stuff > %logfile%
Locale-independent version: If you need it less dependent on the current machine's day format, another way of doing it would be to write a tiny application that prints the day of the week. Then use the output of that program from the batch file. For example, the following C application prints dayN where N=0..6.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>
int main( int argc, char* argv[] )
{
time_t curtime;
struct tm * tmval;
time( &curtime );
tmval = localtime( &curtime );
// print dayN. Or use a switch statement and print
// the actual day name if you want
printf( "day%d", tmval->tm_wday );
}
If the above were compiled and linked as myday.exe, then you could use it from a batch file like this:
for /f %%d in ('myday.exe') do set logfile=%%d.log
echo some stuff > %logfile%

Answer 11

I have this solution working for me:
Create a file named dayOfWeek.vbs in the same dir where the cmd file will go.
dayOfWeek.vbs contains a single line:
wscript.stdout.write weekdayname(weekday(date))
or, if you want day number instead of name:
wscript.stdout.write weekday(date)
The cmd file will have this line:
For /F %%A In ('CScript dayOfWeek.vbs //NoLogo') Do Set dayName=%%A
Now you can use variable dayName like:
robocopy c:\inetpub \\DCStorage1\Share1\WebServer\InetPub_%dayName% /S /XD history logs

Answer 12

Another spin on this topic. The below script displays a few days around the current, with day-of-week prefix.
At the core is the standalone :dpack routine that encodes the date into a value whose modulo 7 reveals the day-of-week per ISO 8601 standards (Mon == 0). Also provided is :dunpk which is the inverse function:
#echo off& setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
rem 10/23/2018 daydate.bat: Most recent version at paulhoule.com/daydate
rem Example of date manipulation within a .BAT file.
rem This is accomplished by first packing the date into a single number.
rem This demo .bat displays dates surrounding the current date, prefixed
rem with the day-of-week.
set days=0Mon1Tue2Wed3Thu4Fri5Sat6Sun
call :dgetl y m d
call :dpack p %y% %m% %d%
for /l %%o in (-3,1,3) do (
set /a od=p+%%o
call :dunpk y m d !od!
set /a dow=od%%7
for %%d in (!dow!) do set day=!days:*%%d=!& set day=!day:~,3!
echo !day! !y! !m! !d!
)
exit /b
rem gets local date returning year month day as separate variables
rem in: %1 %2 %3=var names for returned year month day
:dgetl
setlocal& set "z="
for /f "skip=1" %%a in ('wmic os get localdatetime') do set z=!z!%%a
set /a y=%z:~0,4%, m=1%z:~4,2% %%100, d=1%z:~6,2% %%100
endlocal& set /a %1=%y%, %2=%m%, %3=%d%& exit /b
rem packs date (y,m,d) into count of days since 1/1/1 (0..n)
rem in: %1=return var name, %2= y (1..n), %3=m (1..12), %4=d (1..31)
rem out: set %1= days since 1/1/1 (modulo 7 is weekday, Mon= 0)
:dpack
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
set mtb=xxx 0 31 59 90120151181212243273304334& set /a r=%3*3
set /a t=%2-(12-%3)/10, r=365*(%2-1)+%4+!mtb:~%r%,3!+t/4-(t/100-t/400)-1
endlocal& set %1=%r%& exit /b
rem inverse of date packer
rem in: %1 %2 %3=var names for returned year month day
rem %4= packed date (large decimal number, eg 736989)
:dunpk
setlocal& set /a y=%4+366, y+=y/146097*3+(y%%146097-60)/36524
set /a y+=y/1461*3+(y%%1461-60)/365, d=y%%366+1, y/=366
set e=31 60 91 121 152 182 213 244 274 305 335
set m=1& for %%x in (%e%) do if %d% gtr %%x set /a m+=1, d=%d%-%%x
endlocal& set /a %1=%y%, %2=%m%, %3=%d%& exit /b

Answer 13

If you can change format of short date in the PC to "ddd yyyy-MM-dd" (only first parameter 'ddd' is compulsory), then following command returns-
c:\>vol | date
The current date is: Mon 2014-12-01
Then you can write you batch file -
#echo off
vol | date | find /i "sun" > nul
if not errorlevel 1 goto SUN
vol | date | find /i "mon" > nul
if not errorlevel 1 goto MON
# write block for other week days
goto END
:SUN
set fname="sun"
goto BACKUP
:MON
set fname="mon"
goto BACKUP
# write block for other week days
:BACKUP
echo %fname%
:END

Answer 14

Rem Remove the end comma and add /A to set for this line worked for me.
set /A a=yy/100, b=a/4, c=2-a+b, e=36525*(yy+4716)/100, f=306*(mm+1)/10

Answer 15

Was looking to do this myself and saw complaints about blank lines:
rem Make the win32_localtime output all one line, though some versions may contain blank lines as well.
rem So ignore blank lines and just pick up the number after the equal sign.
for /f "delims== tokens=2" %%a in ('wmic path win32_localtime get dayofweek /format:list') do (
rem Increment the DOW as it is documented to be a zero-based index starting with Sunday.
set /a DayOfWeekIndex=%%a+1
)
rem Also get name day of week. The DOW coming in is now a one-based index.
rem This is used to reference the "array" of week day names.
set DayOfWeekNames=Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
for /f "tokens=%DayOfWeekIndex%" %%b in ("%DayOfWeekNames%") do (
set DayOfWeekName=%%b
)

Answer 16

I Improved Aacini Answer
to make it Echo Full day of week Name
So here's my Code
#echo off
for /F "skip=1 tokens=2-4 delims=(-/)" %%A in ('date ^< NUL') do (
for /F "tokens=1-3 delims=/" %%a in ("%date%") do (
set %%A=%%a
set %%B=%%b
set %%C=%%c
)
)
set /A mm=10%mm% %% 100, dd=10%dd% %% 100
if %mm% lss 3 set /A mm+=12, yy-=1
set /A a=yy/100, b=a/4, c=4-a+b, e=36525*(yy+4716)/100, f=306*(mm+1)/10,dow=(c+dd+e+f-1523)%%7 + 1
for /F "tokens=%dow%" %%a in ("Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday ") do set dow=%%a
echo Today is %dow%>"Today is %dow%.txt"
echo Today is %dow%
Pause>Nul
REM Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
REM Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

Answer 17

I use Tiny C to write a weekday.exe and run with batch file.
for /f %% in ('weekday.exe') do set weekday=%%i
weekday.c:
#include <time.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
time_t curtime;
struct tm * tmval;
time( &curtime );
tmval = localtime( &curtime );
if (tmval->tm_wday == 1) printf("Mon");
if (tmval->tm_wday == 2) printf("Tue");
if (tmval->tm_wday == 3) printf("Wed");
if (tmval->tm_wday == 4) printf("Thu");
if (tmval->tm_wday == 5) printf("Fri");
if (tmval->tm_wday == 6) printf("Sat");
if (tmval->tm_wday == 0) printf("Sun");
return 0;
}

Answer 18

A version using MSHTA and javascript. Change %jsfunc% to whateve jscript function you want to call
#echo off
::Invoke a javascript function using mhta
set jsfunc=new Date().getDay()
set dialog="about:<script>resizeTo(0,0);new ActiveXObject('Scripting.FileSystemObject').
set dialog=%dialog%GetStandardStream(1).WriteLine(%jsfunc%);close();</script>"
for /f "tokens=* delims=" %%p in ('mshta.exe %dialog%') do set ndow=%%p
::get dow string from array of strings
for /f "tokens=%ndow%" %%d in ("Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun") do set dow=%%d
echo dow is : %ndow% %dow%
pause