Using the Command Prompt (CMD.EXE) in Win XP Home SP2. Date format is Day mm/dd/yyyy

I want to be able to display the name of the current month using a batch file. The relevant part of the file is:

@echo off

cls

set datemonth=%date:~4,2%

if %datemonth%==11 set datename=Nov

echo %datemonth% %datename%

But do I need 12 'if' statements to handle each of the 12 months or is there a better way with a loop or some kind of array?

Thanks

This should help:

mmtommm.cmd

Thank you for your speedy response.

Abject apologies for posting in the wrong forum.

I cannot get your coding to run, the first line gives me the error "Invalid number. Number constants are either decimal (17) hexadecimal (0x11) or octal (021)."

At my knowledge level I can't figure out what the problem is or, obviously, how to correct it. However I have been able to slightly modify your second line in order to get the file to run. Regrettably I function on the KISS principle.

Edited November 12, 200718 yr by Yzöwl
code removed

With regard to the error message I found this on another site.

You're using "set /a" which will mean any time you try to set a value of "08", or "09" then an error will be thrown, such as this:

Invalid number.  Numeric constants are either decimal (17),
hexadecimal (0x11), or octal (021).

This is because "set /a" will treat any number with a leading 0 as octal, which it will attempt to store as decimal.  Obviously "08" and "09" are not value numbers in octal, hence the above error.

Hope it's some help.

I don't know why you are getting an error message.

You stated that you are getting the output mm/dd/yyyy. The code parses your date to give you the first two tokens, using your stated / as a delimiter that means it would set %? as mm i.e. 11 which as you know doesn't have a leading 0.

However, as you will note by my code, to prevent an error of the type you are getting I have already built in a fix. When your run the code in March, the %? variable would be 03. In order to remove any leading 0, I prefix a 1 thus making it 103 then subtract 100 making it read 3! SET/A would therefore never see a figure with a leading 0.

Thank you again, things are a bit clearer now.

I stated that the output I'm getting is Day mm/dd/yyyy so the 12th November would show as

"Mon 11/12/2007" without the double quotes. Could it be that %? is being set to "Mon 11" ?

Edited November 12, 200718 yr by RatPack

Yes it would make a difference! I didn't see 'Day' in your original post.

This would probably work better in that case.

day_mm2mmm.cmd

Thank you, all is clear now.

Your help is much appreciated.

set datemonth=%date:~4,2%

I did not know that you could extract part of an environment variable with :~x,y. This will be really useful. Also, I did not know about %date% nor %time%, either.

For example, I noticed that

echo %logonserver:~2%

returns the server name, without the two backslashes.

Very interesting!

-John

set datemonth=%date:~4,2%

I noticed that

echo %logonserver:~2%

returns the server name, without the two backslashes.

Also bear in mind that so does this!

echo %logonserver:\=%

Nice tip.

Is there a web page that discusses these type of features in depth?

Thanks,

-John

Nice tip.

Is there a web page that discusses these type of features in depth?

Thanks,

-John

The "base" references are usually:

Rob van der Woude site:

http://www.robvanderwoude.com/

The part about variable expansion/substitution is on the pages related to SET and FOR, check also the SETLOCAL one.

http://www.robvanderwoude.com/variableexpansion.html

http://www.robvanderwoude.com/ntset.html

http://www.robvanderwoude.com/local.html

the SS64 help for windows commands:

http://www.ss64.com/nt/

jaclaz