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FDATE Version 9.6a 1997 April 22 ====================================================================== "Everything you'd ever want to do with dates in batch files" ====================================================================== AUTHOR: Stephen Ferg 608 N. Harrison Street Arlington, VA 22203-1416 USA Internet : Ferg_S@bls.gov CompuServe ID : 73377,1157 Internet : 73377.1157@compuserve.com telephone (voice, not FAX): (703) 525-2241 ======================================================================= If you are planning to use Fdate with Windows NT, please see the section "/V WHEN RUNNING UNDER WINDOWS NT" (below), or read file FDATE_NT.TXT, which contains the same material. WHAT TO DO IF THIS DOCUMENTATION SEEMS TOO OVERWHELMING ======================================================== As Fdate has grown in functionality over the years, its documentation has also grown. Lately I've been getting feedback from people who encounter Fdate for the first time, telling me that Fdate's documentation is so massive that it is overwhelming: they have no idea where to start, or how to use the documentation to help them figure out how to make Fdate do what they need to do. If that is the situation you're in right now, take heart! There is hope! To help you get started using Fdate, I've created a much shorter file called FDATEBEG.TXT (FDATE beginners documentation), which shows how to use Fdate to do the things most users want to do. So if you're trying to use Fdate for the first time, and feeling overwhelmed (or even if you're not feeling overwhelmed), I suggest that you read FDATEBEG.TXT. Table of Contents Page numbers in the WordPerfect version of FDATE.TXT (which is not distributed with FDATE) are lost in the conversion to ASCII format. Nevertheless, these page numbers give you a rough idea of the relative locations of the different sections. WHAT TO DO IF THIS DOCUMENTATION SEEMS TOO OVERWHELMING. . . . . . . . 1 WHAT IS FDATE? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 ANOTHER UTILITY NAMED "FDATE" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 OVERVIEW OF PARAMETERS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 OVERVIEW OF FUNCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 FUNCTIONS: DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 DATE FORMATTING FUNCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 DATE ARITHMETIC FUNCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 MONTH DATE ARITHMETIC FUNCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 WEEKDAY DATE ARITHMETIC FUNCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 DATE/TIME COMPARISON FUNCTIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 COMPARE-FUNCTION ERRORLEVELS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 NUMERIC ARITHMETIC FUNCTIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 DATE VALIDATION FUNCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 STRING FUNCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 GET and GETU (GET USER INPUT) FUNCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 GETK (GET KEYPRESS) FUNCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Specifying the Keymask. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 GetK Results also in ERRORLEVEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Modifying the Keymask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Displaying a User Prompt With GETK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 SUBSTR (SUBSTRING) FUNCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 LEN (LENGTH) FUNCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 UPPER FUNCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 ECHO FUNCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 /J: JUSTIFYING OUTPUT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 DATE FORMATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 SYMBOL CONVENTIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 PSEUDODATES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 INPUT DATE FORMATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 ABSOLUTE DATE INPUT FORMATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 CALENDAR DATE INPUT FORMATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 BUSINESS JULIAN DATE INPUT FORMATS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 GETTING DATE/TIME A FILE WAS CREATED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 OUTPUT DATE FORMATS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 DAY-OF-WEEK AND MONTH OUTPUT FORMATS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 MISCELLANEOUS OUTPUT FORMATS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 LEAP-YEAR FLAG OUTPUT FORMAT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 TIME OUTPUT FORMATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 BUSINESS JULIAN DATE OUTPUT FORMATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 ABSOLUTE DATE/TIME OUTPUT FORMATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 /T: TIME OVERRIDE PARAMETER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 /J: JUSTIFYING OUTPUT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 HOW TO PUT FDATE OUTPUT INTO AN ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE . . . . . . . . . 42 CALL A BATCH FILE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 USE AN ENVIRONMENT-MANIPULATION UTILITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 FDATE'S /V PARAMETER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 /V WHEN RUNNING UNDER MICROSOFT WINDOWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 /V WHEN RUNNING UNDER WINDOWS NT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Turbo Professional: "Highly Recommended". . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 /V WHEN USING 4DOS, NDOS, AND UMB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 FDATE'S ERROR HANDLING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 EXAMPLES OF HOW TO USE FDATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 :01 Display Fdate output on screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 :02 Redirect FDATE output to a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 :03 Put FDATE output in an environment variable using a batch file. 49 :04 Put FDATE output in an environment variable using /V parm . . . 49 :05 Put FDATE output in an environment variable using STRINGS . . . 49 :06 Put FDATE output in an environment variable using GET . . . . . 49 :07 Get user input. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 :08 Get a user menu selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 :09 Change a date from one format into another. . . . . . . . . . . 52 :10 Find the difference in days between two dates . . . . . . . . . 52 :11 Find the elapsed days/hours/minutes between two date/times. . . 53 :13 Find the elapsed years/months/days between two dates. . . . . . 56 :14 Determine how long it took a program to run . . . . . . . . . . 59 :15 Find years when a given date fell on a given day of the week. . 60 :16 Find calendar date corresponding to a "business Julian" date. . 62 :17 Set your PC's date to a business julian date. . . . . . . . . . 63 :18 Determine if parm %1 contains a valid date. . . . . . . . . . . 65 :19 "Roll your own" date format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 :20 Find the 4th Thursday in November (Thanksgiving). . . . . . . . 66 :22 On a date, show what anniversary it is for some event . . . . . 66 :23 Show a list of holidays in a given year . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 :24 Show a list of Federal holidays in a given year . . . . . . . . 66 :25 Determine if a year is valid, and evenly divisible by 4 . . . . 67 :30 Compare a file's date to today's date . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 :31 Compare two files' date/time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 :32 Display a list of all files that were created/updated today. . 69 :33 MIN_MATH.BAT -- "time arithmetic" in minutes. . . . . . . . . . 70 :34 TIME_SET.BAT -- "time arithmetic" -- set TIME . . . . . . . . . 71 :41 Delete files more than X days old (use a batch-file subroutine) 72 :42 Get date to tell PKZIP to compress files older than 30 days . . 77 :43 Loop through an array of environment variables. . . . . . . . . 78 :44 Do something on the last day (or last Friday) of the month. . . 79 :45 Get information about the month prior to the current month. . . 80 :46 Show the last Monday (or any other weekday) in this month . . . 80 :47 Show the last Monday in the month, for a series of months . . . 81 :50 Represent a date in 3 bytes of "extended hex" notation. . . . . 82 :51 Represent a date in a short (4-byte) format (technique #1). . . 82 :52 Represent a date in a short (4-byte) format (technique #2). . . 83 :53 Convert numbers to "extended hex" (XX) format . . . . . . . . . 83 :54 Customize Fdate for a language of your choice . . . . . . . . . 84 :55 Fergian.BAT (used in the previous example). . . . . . . . . . . 85 :61 DO-ONCE: Run apps when booting for the first time of the day. . 87 :62 Run specific software, depending on the day of the week . . . . 88 :63 Run a program at a specified time later in the day. . . . . . . 88 :66 Change a filename to contain today's date . . . . . . . . . . . 90 :67 Change a file's name to a name that contains today's date . . . 90 :68 Change a file's name to a name containing an absolute minute . 90 :71 Extract the rightmost n characters of a string . . . . . . . . 90 :72 Left-pad a number with zeroes, or a string with spaces. . . . . 90 HOW FDATE THINKS ABOUT DATES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 FDATE'S BUSINESS VIEW OF THE CALENDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 FDATE'S BASE DATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 FDATE'S LEAP YEAR ALGORITHM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 FDATE'S CENTURY-ASSUMPTION ALGORITHM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 FDATE'S IMPLEMENTATION LIMITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 DISTRIBUTION ISSUES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 USE, REGISTRATION, AND DISTRIBUTION OF FDATE. . . . . . . . . . . . 95 TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR FDATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 WHERE TO FIND THE MOST CURRENT VERSION OF FDATE . . . . . . . . . . 96 UPLOADING FDATE TO ELECTRONIC BULLETIN BOARDS . . . . . . . . . . . 96 CONTENTS OF THE FDATE.ZIP DISTRIBUTION FILE . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 RECENT FDATE REVISION HISTORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 WHAT IS FDATE? ============== Fdate is a utility for doing date formatting and date arithmetic in DOS batch files. There are a number of different ways to put FDATE's output into environment variables. Once this has been done, the environment variables can be used and manipulated in many ways in the batch file. FDATE is freeware, or what is technically known as "zero-cost shareware". There is no requirement to register FDATE in any way. For more details, see the DISTRIBUTION ISSUES section. Here are some of the things you can do with FDATE. accept user input from the keyboard retrieve today's date in a variety of formats place today's date into a file name reformat dates Output formats include common American and European formats, or you can "roll your own" by manipulating environment variables. Month and weekday names can be produced in several languages (English, French, German, Spanish). calculate when certain holidays occur in a given year do date arithmetic determine the date N days before/after a given date compare two dates to determine which is earlier compare two dates to determine how many days apart they are determine if a year is a leap year determine whether a year is evenly divisible by some number determine what day of the week a date falls on run certain software only on certain days of the week retrieve the date/time from the date/timestamp of a file do simple integer arithmetic (add, subtract, modulus) calculate the time a piece of software takes to run convert a calendar date to/from a "business julian" date extract a substring from an environment variable right, left, or center justify a string ANOTHER UTILITY NAMED "FDATE" ============================= There is another shareware utility named FDATE in circulation, written by Garrett A. Wollman. Mr. Wollman's FDATE is a kind of "touch" utility that can be used to change a file's NAME (rather than its date/time stamp) to a certain date. The Public Software Library in Houston distributes it under the name FDATE.ZIP. PSL distributes my [Ferg's] FDATE under the name FDATESF.ZIP. As of April 1997, you can reach PSL by telephone (voice) at (713) 524-6394, by Compuserve at 74777,3465, or by the Web at www.pslweb.com. The most recent information I have is that Garrett Wollman can be reached at: Garrett A. Wollman 7 Worcester Street South Burlington, VT 05403 USA ...uunet!mimsy!aplcen!jhunix!gwollman ...uunet!uvm-gen!tnl!gwollman (summer) gwollman@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu Both FDATEs have been in circulation under the name FDATE.ZIP for too long to make it practical to change the name of either one. All that can be done is to warn you of a potentially confusing situation. If you see a file named FDATE.ZIP, read the description of the file to determine which FDATE it is. Checking the version numbers may also help-- as of April 1996, Ferg's FDATE is in version 9.3; Mr. Wollman's FDATE is in version 1.2. OVERVIEW OF PARAMETERS ====================== FDATE accepts the following parameters: /F /A /B /I /O /P /S /N /D /L /V /T /Q /J /K /X If the /F parameter is not present, FDATE displays a help screen. If you get FDATE's help screen when you don't expect it, you probably forgot to specify the /F parameter or mistyped it. Parameters can be in any order and upper or lower case. Note that although function and format parms are not case sensitive, they are "text sensitive". If any characters are missing, added, or mistyped, the parameter will be rejected. What parameters are required (other than /F) depends on the function requested with the /F parameter. Unnecessary parameters are simply ignored. HERE IS A BRIEF SUMMARY OF WHAT EACH OF THE PARAMETERS MEANS ------------------------------------------------------------ /F requests a particular FDATE function. This is Fdate's most important parameter. See the OVERVIEW OF FUNCTIONS section, and the detailed description of each Fdate function. /A For date functions, these two parameters are used to specify dates. /B For the ordinary arithmetic functions, these parameters are used to specify numbers. For date functions, if either of these parameters is omitted, it defaults to today's date. /Dday-of-week number (used only with W function) /Ispecifies format of input date(s) If the /I parameter is omitted, /Imm-dd-ccyy is assumed. /J specifies justification, length, and pad character If the /J parameter is omitted, no justification formatting is done. /K The GETK function takes a /K "keymask" parameter that tells it which keys to accept. /L specifies language of output. /Lus US (American) English-language output /Lfr French-language output /Lgr German-language output /Lsp Spanish-language output If the /L parameter is omitted, /Lus [American English] is assumed. /Nnumber of days (always a number) /Ospecifies format of output date If the /O parameter is omitted, /Od1 is assumed. /Q specifies a prompt string for a GET, GETU, or GETK function, or the input string for a string-handling function (SUBSTR, LEN, UPPER). /P specifies a prefix string for the output /S specifies a suffix string for the output These optional parameters may always be specified or omitted. They must be enclosed in single quotes, double quotes, or square brackets Note that "whitespace" will be removed from these strings, so formatting of /P and /S strings cannot be controlled using spaces. To format strings, use periods or ASCII 255 (hex'ff') as filler. EXAMPLES FDATE /Ff /P"Today is " FDATE /Fdif /B12-25-TTTT /P"It is " /S" days until Christmas" /T For date functions, /T overrides the time portion of the date on the /A parm. (Note that it does NOT override the time portion of the date on the /B parm.) /V specifies that output is to be placed in an environment variable rather than written to standard output. If /V is specified but not followed by the name of an environment variable, then /Vfdate is assumed, and output is placed in the FDATE environment variable. /X Used only with the weekday arithmetic function (/Fw). By default, if if the date specified on the /A parm falls on the day of the week specified on the /D parm, then the /A date is considered to be the first date meeting the day-of-week criterion. If the /X parm is specified, then the /A date will NOT be considered to meet the day-of-week criterion. See the detailed discussion of weekday arithmetic, below. OVERVIEW OF FUNCTIONS ===================== Fdate's most important parameter is the function parameter, /F. Here is a brief summary of the functions that may be specified on the /F parm, for example: /Fadd. Detailed descriptions of each of the functions can be found on the next few pages. If the /F parameter is omitted, it defaults to the null string, which causes Fdate to display its HELP screens. f Format the date in the /A parm into format specified in /O parm add Add the number of days in the /N parm to the date in the /A parm sub Subtract the number of days in the /N parm from the date in the /A parm dif Return the number of days between dates in the /A and /B parms w Do date arithmetic in terms of weeks rather than days. Using the date in the /A parm, a number specified in the /N parm, and a day-of-the-week number specified in the /D parm, return the date of the /Nth /Day-of-the-week before (or after) /Adate. m Do date arithmetic in terms of months rather than days. Add the number of months in the /N parm to the date in the /A parm. /N may be a negative number. STRING-HANDLING FUNCTIONS get get user input from the keyboard, and produce it as output Optionally, display a prompt string. getu same as get, but produce output converted to upper case getk get a keypress and produce it (converted to upper case) len produce the length of a string in the /Q parm upper convert the string in the /Q parm to upper case e Echo the strings on the /P and /S parameters. substr Extract a substring from the /Q parm, starting in column specified on /A parm, for a length specified on /B parm. DATE/TIME COMPARISON FUNCTIONS comp Compare the dates in the /A and /B parms. Return LT, EQ, or GT. tcomp Compare the times specified on the /A and /B parms. ORDINARY (AS OPPOSED TO DATE) ARITHMETIC FUNCTIONS Functions whose names begin with "#" do ordinary arithmetic, i.e. arithmetic on numbers rather than dates. #add Add the integers specified on the /A and /B parms. To do subtraction, add a negative number to a positive number. #dif returns the difference between the integers specified on the /A and /B parms. #comp Compare the integers specified on the /A and /B parms. Return LT, EQ, or GT. #mod Modulus. Divide the integer on the /A parm by the integer on the /B parm, and return the remainder. #random Random number. Returns a random number between zero and the number (an integer) specified on the /A parm. #mult Multiply the integer on the /A parm by the integer on the /B parm, and return the result. #div Divide the integer on the /A parm by the integer on the /B parm, and return the result as a decimal number with two decimal places. #idiv Integer division. Divide the integer on the /A parm by the integer on the /B parm, and return the result as an integer. #2xx Convert an integer in the range of 0-35 to "extended hex" (XX) notation. FUNCTIONS: DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS ================================ DATE FORMATTING FUNCTIONS ========================= FUNCTION FDATE /Ffunc /Adate /Iformat /Oformat -------- ------------------------------------------- format this is a synonym for function "f" f returns /Adate in format specified by /Oformat Since /Aformat and /Oformat can be different, the FORMAT function is used to change a date from one format to another. Because of the wide variety of output formats, the FORMAT function can also be used to determine the day of week of the date, whether the date is in a normal or leap year, etc. EXAMPLES FDATE /Ff /A19920101 /Iccyymmdd /O"mn zd, ccyy" FDATE /Ff /Atoday /Od1 FDATE /Fformat /Atoday /Od1 FDATE /Ff /If /Afdate.exe /P"FDATE.EXE last updated: " /Ofull DATE ARITHMETIC FUNCTIONS ========================= Internally, numbers in Fdate are stored in Turbo Pascal's LONGINT datatype, which means that Fdate can accept numbers up to 9 digits long. FUNCTION FDATE /Ffunc /Nnumdays /Adate /Iformat /Oformat -------- ------------------------------------------- add Adds /Ndays to /Adate, produces date in /Oformat format sub Subtracts /Ndays from /Adate, produces date in /Oformat format EXAMPLES FDATE /Fadd /N90 /A01-01-1992 /Imm-dd-ccyy /Od1 FDATE /Fsub /N90 /A01-01-1992 /Imm-dd-ccyy /Od1 FDATE /Fadd /N90 /Atoday /Od1 dif Returns number of days between /Adate and /Bdate Order of the two dates is not significant. NOTE THAT: For DIF, both dates must be in the SAME format, the input format specified in /Iformat. If the two dates are not in the same format, you must first reformat one of the dates using the /Ff function, then use DIF to get their difference. EXAMPLES FDATE /Fdif /A01-01-1992 /B11-11-1992 /Imm-dd-ccyy FDATE /Fdif /A11-11-1992 /B01-01-1992 /Imm-dd-ccyy FDATE /Fdif /Atoday /B01-01-1992 /Imm-dd-ccyy MONTH DATE ARITHMETIC FUNCTIONS =============================== FUNCTION FDATE /Ffunc /Nnumdays /Adate /Iformat /Oformat -------- ------------------------------------------- m [month arithmetic] This function adds /N months to /Adate, and produces a date in /Oformat format. It can be used to do monthly subtraction by making the number in the /N parameter a negative number. EXAMPLES FDATE /Fm /N1 /A03-15-1992 /Imm-dd-ccyy /Omm-dd-ccyy produces: 04-15-1992 FDATE /Fm /N-1 /A03-30-1991 /Imm-dd-ccyy /Omm-dd-ccyy produces: 02-28-1991 FDATE /Fm /N-1 /A03-30-1992 /Imm-dd-ccyy /Omm-dd-ccyy produces: 02-29-1992 Note that a too-simple algorithm for month arithmetic can produce non-existent dates. Subtracting a month from March 30, 1991 (as in the second example) could produce a result of February 30, 1991, a date which cannot exist. Fdate's month arithmetic is more sophisticated than that. If Fdate finds that a simple month-arithmetic operation produces an invalid date, it subtracts the minimum number of days required to produce a valid date. Thus, in the second example, it produces February 28, 1991, the last date in February, 1991. In the third example, it produces February 29, 1992 because 1992 is a leap year. Note that telling Fdate to add 12 months to February 29, 1992 produces a result of February 28, 1993, since 1993 is not a leap year. See Peter G. Neumann's INSIDE RISKS column in COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM, June 1992 (Vol. 35, No. 6), entitled "Leap-Year Problems": Prime Computer's MAGSAV failed at midnight [on Feb 29, 1992]... G. M. Lack noted that MAGSAV probably failed on leap-day because it tried to increment the year by one to set a tape label expiration date, and the resulting nonexistent date of Feb 29, 1993 threw it for a loop. WEEKDAY DATE ARITHMETIC FUNCTIONS ================================= FUNCTION FDATE /Ffunc /Adate /Iformat /Oformat /Ddow# /Ndow-count -------- ----------------------------------------------------------- w[week arithmetic] This function provides a way of doing date arithmetic in terms of weeks rather than days. This function accepts a date specification in parm /A and returns the date of the /Nth /Day-of-the-week before or after /Adate. For example: If /A specifies November 14, 1992 /D specifies the number for Thursday (i.e., 5) /N specifies a week count of 3 then /Fw returns the date of the third Thursday after November 14, 1992. (See full example, below) Note that /N may be negative. If, in the above example, /N is specified as -3, then Fdate returns the date of the third Thursday BEFORE November 14, 1992. The acceptable values for /N (number of weeks) is in the range of 99..-99. A value of zero (i.e. /N0) is invalid. A BIT OF TRICKINESS WITH WEEKDAY ARITHMETIC There is a small dilemma inherent in the notion of weekday arithmetic. If the date specified on the /A parm falls on the same day of the week (say, Thursday) as the day of the week that was specified on the /D parm, should (or should not) the /A date be considered the first date that meets the day-of-week criterion? For example, if day X is a Thursday, and we specify that we want the first Thursday ("/N1 /D5") from day X, should we get day X itself, or the Thursday that is 7 days after day X? Depending on what you're trying to do, one or the other kind of behavior will be preferable. Starting with version 9.2, FDATE supports both kind of processing. When using the weekday arithmetic function (/Fw), you can determine the kind of processing that takes place by specifying (or omitting) the /X (exclude) parm. That is, if the date specified on the /A parm falls on the day of the week specified on the /D parm, then... IF THE /X PARM IS NOT PRESENT ... then the /A date will be considered to be the first date meeting the day-of-week criterion. For example, suppose that /D specified Thursday and /A specified Thursday, November 14, 1992. If /N was 1 or -1, then the output date would be the same as the input date, i.e. Thursday November 14, 1992. IF THE /X PARM IS PRESENT ... then the /A date will be EXCLUDED from consideration when looking for the first day to meet the day-of-week criterion. For example, suppose that /D specified Thursday and /A specified Thursday November 14, 1992. If /N was 1, then the output date would be the following Thursday, November 21, 1992. If /N was -1, then the output date would be the preceding Thursday, November 7, 1992. EXAMPLES find date of Thanksgiving (4th Thursday in November) in 1992 FDATE /Fw /A11-01-1992 /Imm-dd-ccyy /D5 /N4 /Od1 returns: Thursday November 26, 1992 find the beginning of the work-week (Monday, 2nd day of week) AFTER Thanksgiving, 1992 FDATE /Fw /A11-26-1992 /Imm-dd-ccyy /D2 /N1 /Od1 find the beginning of the work-week (Monday, 2nd day of week) BEFORE Thanksgiving, 1992 FDATE /Fw /A11-26-1992 /Imm-dd-ccyy /D2 /N-1 /Od1 find last Friday's date (even if today is Friday) FDATE /Fw /At /D6 /N-1 /X /P"Last Friday was: " DATE/TIME COMPARISON FUNCTIONS ============================== FUNCTION FDATE /Ffunc /Adate /Bdate /Iformat -------- ------------------------------------------- comp compares the dates (time granularity = 1 day) specified on the /A and /B parms. returns when LT /A is less than (earlier than) /B EQ /A is equal to (same as) /B GT /A is greater than (later than) /B In addition, the errorlevel is set to a special value: LT = 101 EQ = 102 GT = 103 tcomp compares the times (time granularity = 1 second) specified on the /A and /B parms. This is useful when input format /If (file) is specified. It can be used to compare the timestamps of two files and determine which is older. EXAMPLE: Fdate /Ftcomp /If /Amyfile.1 /Byourfile.1 returns when LT /A is less than (earlier than) /B EQ /A is equal to (same as) /B GT /A is greater than (later than) /B In addition, the errorlevel is set to a special value: LT = 101 EQ = 102 GT = 103 COMPARE-FUNCTION ERRORLEVELS ============================ Starting with version 8.3, Fdate's "comparison" functions (comp, tcomp, #comp) return distinct errorlevels as well as distinct output strings: returns errorlevel LT 101 EQ 102 GT 103 NUMERIC ARITHMETIC FUNCTIONS ============================ Note that all of Fdate's arithmetic functions operate on integers. A decimal number on an input parameter will be rejected, and an error message will be displayed. FUNCTION FDATE /Ffunc /Anum /Bnum -------- ------------------------------------------- #add returns the sum of the integers specified on the /A and /B parms. Can be used to calculate the "absolute" minute(second, date) in the future from a given "absolute" minute(second, date). Also useful in generating sequences of numbers and looping (see EXAMPLES). #sub (not supported) Fdate does not provide a numeric subtraction operation as such. To do subtraction, add two numbers, one of which is a negative number. For example, to subtract 3 from 2: FDATE /F#add /A2 /B-3 [ returns: -1 ] #dif returns the difference between the integers specified on the /A and /B parms. #dif is the same as subtraction in which the smaller number is subtracted from the larger number; it will never return a negative number. It can be used to calculate the number of minutes(seconds, days) between two "Absolute" minutes(seconds, dates). #comp compares the integers specified on the /A and /B parms. returns when LT /A is less than /B EQ /A is equal to /B GT /A is greater than /B In addition, the errorlevel is set to a special value: LT = 101 EQ = 102 GT = 103 #mod divides the integer on the /A parm by the integer on the /B parm, and returns the remainder. This is useful for determining whether a number is evenly divisible by some other number. If the remainder is 0, then /A is evenly divisible by /B. If a year is evenly divisible by 4, for example, then it is an American election year. If it is evenly divisible by 100, then it is a century year, etc. #mult multiplies the integer on the /A parm by the integer on the /B parm, and returns the result. #div (division) divides the integer on the /A parm by the integer on the /B parm, and returns the result as a decimal number, with two digits to the right of the decimal. This is useful for dividing a number (representing the number of minutes in some period) by 60 to get the length of the period expressed in terms of hours, or by 1440 to get the length of the period expressed in terms of days. Or you could divide a number of days by 7 to get the number of weeks, etc. #idiv (integer division) divides the integer on the /A parm by the integer on the /B parm, and returns the result as an integer. This is useful, especially in conjunction with the #mod function, for converting a number of minutes into a number of hours and minutes, or days and hours and minutes. See the EXAMPLES section, below. #2xx (convert number to "extended hex" format) "Extended hexadecimal" (XX) notation uses all of the digits, and all of the letters of the alphabet, to express numbers in the range of 0 to 35 as a single character. This function takes a number supplied on parameter /A, and returns a single character in extended hex notation. The input number should be in the range of 0-35. A number of less than 0 or larger than 35 is rejected as an error (returns "ERROR" and errorlevel of 1). EXAMPLE: Fdate /F#2xx /A35 =====> returns the letter Z DATE VALIDATION FUNCTION ======================== v If the date specified on the /A parm is valid, produces "" (the null string). Otherwise, produces "ERROR" and a non-zero errorlevel by triggering Fdate's error-handling function. (See the section on FDATE'S ERROR HANDLING, later in this documentation.) When using the /Fv parameter, you will almost always want to check success of the date validation by checking the errorlevel, and to redirect Fdate's output to NUL (so that when it writes the null string, it does not produce a blank line on your screen). When processing an input date, Fdate does not reject all invalid dates: specifically, it is very forgiving about the number in the day- of-the-month part of input dates. It will accept, for example, 19931144 (November 44, 1993 in CCYYMMDD format) and process it quite happily (as December 14, 1993). This is not a bug, it is a feature. This feature provides one way (admittedly a crude one) of doing date arithmetic. The date part (JJJ) of a Business Julian input date can be used in the same way. This feature can be a drawback, however, if you want to be sure that some date (say a date that a user entered as an input parameter) is valid. The /Fv function provides a way of completely checking a date for validity. It will, for example, reject November 44, 1993 as invalid. STRING FUNCTIONS ================================ GET and GETU (GET USER INPUT) FUNCTIONS ======================================= get get user input getu get user input (uppercase) These functions wait for the user to enter an input string, terminated by a press of the ENTER key. Then Fdate simply produces that same input string (or in the case of GETU, that input string in all upper case) as its output. If the /Q prompt-string parameter is specified, then the prompt string is displayed, but a NEWLINE is not written to the screen before waiting for the user's input. As with Fdate's other forms of output, this output can be displayed, redirected to a file, or (if your environment supports Fdate's /V parameter) placed into an environment variable. This "get" function provides no edit mask for input -- Fdate will accept anything. The situation is helped by the fact that Fdate also provides a validate function (/Fv) which can be used to validate the user input, so that one can: 1. use /Fget to get user input and place it in an environment variable 2. use /Fv to validate the date in the Evar 3. use the rest of the batch file to process the user input See examples: "Get user input" and FORATIM2.BAT For a program that provides more sophisticated functions for getting user input in batch files (type checking, edit masks, etc.), I recommend Bob Stephan's shareware program GET, which is described elsewhere in this documentation. GETK (GET KEYPRESS) FUNCTION ======================================= getK get keypress This function waits for the user to press an acceptable key, then produces the key as its output. If the key pressed is a letter, then the letter is returned IN UPPER CASE. This feature is designed to support simple "pick a menu selection" processing in batch files. The GETK function takes a /K "keymask" parameter that tells it which keys to accept. If the user presses an unacceptable key (i.e. one that is not in the keymask), the keypress is ignored. If no /K parm is specified, the default keymask is: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZx That is, the default keymask will accept letters and the ESCAPE key. Specifying the Keymask NOTE THAT THE VALUES SPECIFIED ON THE /K PARM ARE CASE-SENSITIVE. The keymask may contain numbers, uppercase letters, and any of the other printable characters on the keyboard. There is no way to tell FDATE to accept "special" keypresses such as function keys, ALT or CONTROL keys, arrow keys, etc. If the keymask contains an uppercase letter (e.g. "A"), and the user presses the corresponding unshifted letter (e.g. "a"), then the keypress will be accepted and the uppercase letter will be returned. The keymask may contain the following lowercase letters, which have special meanings: x represents the ESCAPE key e represents the ENTER (RETURN) key z [a place-holder character] Lowercase "z" will be ignored when FDATE decides which keypresses are acceptable. Its presence in the keymask will affect the positions of other characters in the keymask, and hence the ERRORLEVEL that FDATE returns when the user presses an acceptable key. (For the uses of "z", see "GetK Results also in ERRORLEVEL" and "Modifying the Keymask", below.) All other lowercase letters are reserved for possible future use. In the current release of FDATE, they are treated like lowercase "z". EXAMPLE: If a keymask of "/kXx" was specified, then if the user pressed the (shifted or unshifted) "X" key, then uppercase "X" would be returned. If he pressed the ESCAPE key, then lowercase "x" would be returned. GetK Results also in ERRORLEVEL When the GETK function returns a key, it sets the DOS errorlevel to a value corresponding to the position of that key in the keymask. For example, with keymask of "/kABx", if the user presses: "A": value returned will be "A", errorlevel will be 1 "B": value returned will be "B", errorlevel will be 2 ESCAPE: value returned will be "x", errorlevel will be 3 If the user presses CONTROL+BREAK, FDATE will abort and return errorlevel 255. Here is an example batch file: ================================================================== @echo off cls echo Demonstration of FDATE's GETK (get keypress) function echo Press CONTROL+BREAK to end :top echo. fdate /fGetK /P"You pressed: " /Q"Press a key: " /K"12ABxe " if errorlevel 1 if not errorlevel 2 echo errorlevel : 1 if errorlevel 2 if not errorlevel 3 echo errorlevel : 2 if errorlevel 3 if not errorlevel 4 echo errorlevel : 3 if errorlevel 4 if not errorlevel 5 echo errorlevel : 4 if errorlevel 5 if not errorlevel 6 echo errorlevel : 5 if errorlevel 6 if not errorlevel 7 echo errorlevel : 6 if errorlevel 7 if not errorlevel 8 echo errorlevel : 7 if errorlevel 255 echo ERRORLEVEL 255 if errorlevel 255 goto endit goto top :endit ================================================================== Note that the keymask may contain blanks if the keymask is enclosed in quotes (as in this example batch file). But remember that Fdate eliminates redundant spaces when obtaining its parameter input, so you should never include more than one blank in your keymask. Modifying the Keymask It is often necessary to make program modifications during the life of a batch file. If you are using the GETK function and testing the errorlevel rather than the environment, then the insertion or deletion of characters into the existing keymask will change the errorlevels returned by the following characters in the keymask. This will force you to re-write the errorlevel tests, which may be a big job if the keymask is long. Here are some tips on how to avoid this work: When ADDING a character to the keymask, always add it at the END of the keymask. When DELETING a character from the keymask, do not actually delete it. Instead, replace it by a lowercase "z". Displaying a User Prompt With GETK The /Q (user prompt) parameter is especially handy when used in conjunction with the GETK function. If the /Q prompt-string parameter is specified (as in the example batch file, above), then the prompt string is displayed, but a NEWLINE is not written to the screen before waiting for the user's keypress. For a program that provides more sophisticated "get key" functions for batch files, I recommend Bob Stephan's shareware program GET, which is described elsewhere in this documentation. SUBSTR (SUBSTRING) FUNCTION =============================== substr This function returns a substring of the string supplied in the /Q parm, starting in the column supplied in the /A parm, for a length supplied in the /B parm. The start column specified in the /A parm may be a negative number; if it is, then the start column is calculated from the end of the string rather than from the beginning. This feature makes it easy to extract the rightmost characters of a string. Specifically, when the ParmA is negative, the start position is calculated using the following formula: StartColumn = length(ParmQ) + 1 + ParmA Example: Fdate /Fsubstr /A-2 /Qabcd StartColumn = length(ParmQ) + 1 + ParmA StartColumn = 4 + 1 + (-2) = 3 If /Q is omitted, Fdate reports an error. If /A is zero, Fdate reports an error. If /A is omitted, it defaults to 1 (that is, the start of the string). If /A is negative, and longer than the length of the string, then the start column is 1 (the start of the string) If /B (length) is so great that it exceed the length of the /Q input string, then only the remainder of the string is returned. If /B is zero, Fdate returns a null string. If /B is omitted, it defaults to 999. EXAMPLES: Fdate /Fsubstr /A7 /B2 /Q"STEVE FERG" ===> "FE" Fdate /Fsubstr /A7 /Q"STEVE FERG" ===> "FERG" Fdate /Fsubstr /B5 /Q"STEVE FERG" ===> "STEVE" EXAMPLES using a negative start position: Fdate /Fsubstr /a-6 /B3 /Q"1994 Jun 03" ===> "Jun rem extract the rightmost 6 characters of a string Fdate /Fsubstr /a-6 /Q"1994 Jun 03" ===> "Jun 03" rem pad YEAR environment variable to the left with zeroes, rem to make sure it is 4 bytes long Fdate /Fsubstr /A-4 /q0000%year% /vyear REMEMBER that Fdate eliminates redundant spaces when obtaining its parameter input: Fdate /Fsubstr /A7 /Q"STEVE FERG" ===> "FERG" Fdate /Fsubstr /A7 /Q"STEVE FERG" ===> "FERG" Fdate /Fsubstr /A7 /Q"STEVE FERG" ===> "FERG" LEN (LENGTH) FUNCTION ===================== len Produces a number that is the length of the string on the /Q parm. UPPER FUNCTION =============== upper Produces the string on the /Q parm, converted to upper case. ECHO FUNCTION ============= e Produces only the strings specified using the /Q, /P, and /S parameters. Justification, if specified using the /J parm, is applied only to the string, if any, supplied on the /Q parm. You can use /Fe for situations in which you want Fdate to produce output that doesn't include any sort of date. In these cases, Fdate functions just like the DOS "echo" command. The /Fe function is especially useful in conjunction with the /J (justify) parm (see below). One nifty feature of /Fe (although one that will be of interest only to extreme batch-file power users) is its ability, when used in conjunction with /V, to put a character into an environment variable that the SET command would not accept: characters such as an equal-sign "=" , the redirection symbol ">", and the pipe symbol "|". /J: JUSTIFYING OUTPUT ========================== Using the /J (justify) parameter, it is possible to right, center, or left- justify FDATE's output, truncate it, or pad it with a certain character. Note that /J is not a function, but a parameter. The /J parameter may be used in conjunction with any of FDATE's functions. (It is discussed here, with the string-handling functions, because that's where it seemed most at home.) Justification takes place AFTER the strings specified on the /P (prefix) and /S (suffix) parms have been added to the output. The format of the /J parm is: /J"tp##" where t is a single character indicating the type of justification desired: Rright Lleft Ccentered p is a single character specifying the character to be used to pad the output out to the desired length. The most common values for this character will be the period (".") and the blank. In order for a blank to be recognized as a pad character (and not to be taken as the terminator of the /J-parm value), the /J-parm value must be enclosed in single or double quotes, e.g.: /J"C 79" ## is a number that specifies the length of the field within which justification should take place. This must be a number between 1 and 240. If ## is less than the length of the un-justified output string, then the un-justified output string will be truncated to ## characters, starting at the point specified by the justification type (i.e. at the right, left, or center of the un-justified output string). SOME USES FOR THE /J PARM (Most of these uses are illustrated in HOLIDAYS.BAT, which is included in the FDATE distribution ZIP file.) In conjunction with the "echo" function (/Fe), the /J parm can be used to justify any value that you wish, not just output dates created by Fdate. Put the value to be justified in the /Q parm. Put a title, for example, as the value of the /Q parm, and specify center justification, padded with spaces, to a length of 79 characters (/J"c 79"). This will display the title, centered on the screen. If you use the "echo" function and the /J parm, and specify the /Q parm but do not specify a value for it, then only the pad character will be displayed. (That is, the null string will be padded with the pad character to the desired length.) EXAMPLE: This is a handy way to draw horizontal lines of dashes, dots, or any other desired character. FDATE /FE /Q /JC-79 The /J parm can be used to left-pad a number with zeroes. EXAMPLE: Many of Fdate's input formats require the year to be in complete 4-digit CCYY format. If your batch file obtains a value for YEAR from the user, the user might enter a YEAR that is less than 1000. You can add leading zeroes to YEAR by right justifying it, padded it with '0' to a length of 4. FDATE /Fe /Q%year% /JR04 /vyear Because /J can be used to truncate a string to a specified length, it can be used to extract the rightmost, leftmost, or centermost ## characters of a string. EXAMPLES Fdate /Fe /J"C 79" /Q"SCREEN TITLE" Fdate's output is not put into an environment variable, so it will be displayed on the screen. This command will echo the string "SCREEN TITLE" to the screen, centered in a field 79 characters long (that is, centered on the screen), and padded to the left and right with blanks. Fdate /Fe /J"L.40" /Q"Next report due date" /Vtitle Fdate /fadd /N60 /Od1 /Q"%title% " The first command left-justifies "Next report due date" in a string 40 characters wide, padded to the right with periods, and puts it into the TITLE environment variable. In the second step, the TITLE environment variable is used as the label for a date 60 days in the future. In the second step, note the space between the end of %title% and the trailing double-quote. This leaves a nice space between the dot leader and the date. For more examples, see HOLIDAYS.BAT. DATE FORMATS ============ SYMBOL CONVENTIONS ================== The following symbols are used in specifying date formats: SYMBOL EXAMPLE MEANING ------ ------- ------------------------------------- cc 19 century yy 93 year mm 02 month zm 2 month without leading zero dd 08 day zd 8 day without leading zero mn February month name mn3 Feb month name, first 3 characters only dow Tuesday day of week dow3 Tue day of week, first 3 characters only dow# 3 day of week as a number (Sunday=1, Monday = 2, etc.) today is a "pseudodate" representing the current date t is an alias for the "today" pseudodate hh:mm 09:05 hours and minutes hhmm 0905 hours and minutes ss 13 seconds PSEUDODATES =========== t (or today) can be used with either /A or /B, e.g. /Atoday or /At. This is the default for both /A and /B. That is, if /A is not specified, /At is assumed, and the same for /B. NOTE THAT "Today" as a date specification operates independently of any input format. You need to specify an input format (either explicitly via the /I parameter, or implicitly by accepting the default value of /I) only for input dates that are supplied to Fdate in some other way than via the "today" pseudodate: as a date literal, a filename, etc. EXAMPLES: rem Get the date that is 90 days from today FDATE /Fadd /N90 /Atoday /Omm-dd-ccyy FDATE /Fadd /N90 /At /Omm-dd-ccyy rem determine if this year is a leapyear FDATE /Ff /At /OLY tttt When used in place of a 4-digit CCYY string, "tttt" will cause Fdate to use today's 4-digit year (CCYY). tt When used in place of a 2-digit DD, MM, or YY string, "tt" will cause Fdate to use today's day-of-the-month, month, or 2-digit year, respectively. Note that "tt" can NOT be used for the YY portion of a CCYY input year. The following, for example, is NOT valid: FDATE /Ff /Imm-dd-ccyy /A01-01-19tt /Od1 EXAMPLES: FDATE /Ff /Imm-dd-ccyy /A01-01-tttt FDATE /Ff /Imm-dd-yy /A01-01-tt rem report the 15th day of this month, this year FDATE /Ff /Imm-dd-ccyy /Att-15-tttt rem Show the first Monday in the second quarter of this year FDATE /Fw /Iccyymmdd /Atttt0401 /D2 /N1 /P"First Monday in QTR#2: " rem Show the last Friday on/before the 15th of this month. FDATE /Fw /Iccyymmdd /Atttttt15 /D6 /N-1 /P"Friday before the 15th: " INPUT DATE FORMATS ================== ABSOLUTE DATE INPUT FORMATS =========================== day# 727198 "Absolute date": date expressed as number of days since the beginning of the calendar. "1" for January 1, 0001, "2" for January 2, 0001, etc. minute# 33088 "Absolute minutes": time expressed as number of minutes since midnight, January 1, 1990. CALENDAR DATE INPUT FORMATS =========================== FORMAT EXAMPLES DISCUSSION ------ --------- ----------------------------- ccyymmdd 19922002 On the /I (input format) parm, the separator character of the following input formats must be a dash. This simply tells Fdate that the input date will contain SOME separator character. The separator character that actually occurs in dates in the /A and /B parms is ignored, and may be any non-numeric character: a slash "/", a dash "-", a dot ".", etc. In specifications that begin with "mm-dd" or "dd-mm", leading zeros need not be present in the "mm" and "dd" part of the date. ccyy-mm-dd 1992-02-20 Leading zeros MUST be present, since the 1992/02/20 date does not begin with dd-mm or mm-dd. 1992.02.20 mm-dd-ccyy 02-20-1992 02/20/1992 The dash represents ANY non-numeric character. 2-5-1992 Leading zeros need not be present. 2/5/1992 mm-dd-yy 02-05-92 February 5, 1992. See discussion of 2/5/92 FDATE'S CENTURY ASSUMPTION ALGORITHM, below --------------------------------------- In the following formats, days precede months (European style) --------------------------------------- dd-mm-ccyy 05-02-1992 05/02/1992 5-2-1992 Leading zeros need not be present. 5/2/1992 dd-mm-yy 05-02-92 February 5, 1992. See discussion of 5/2/92 FDATE'S CENTURY ASSUMPTION ALGORITHM, below BUSINESS JULIAN DATE INPUT FORMATS ================================== These are formats for "business julian" dates: dates expressed as the number of days from the beginning of the year, when January 1 is day 1. EXAMPLES: date BUSINESS JULIAN DATE ----------- -------------------- Jan 5, 1992 92005 Jan 5, 1993 93005 Dec 31, 1993 93365 [Dec 31 is 365th day of year 1993] Dec 31, 1996 96366 [Dec 31 is 366th day, because 1996 is a leap year] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: * JJJ can be 1 - 5 digits * may include a prefix of a plus or minus ( + or - ) sign ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FORMAT EXAMPLES DISCUSSION ------ --------- ----------------------------- ccyyjjj 1992003 Third day of 1992, i.e. Jan 3, 1992 19923 Third day of 1992 tttt003 Third day of this year tttt3 Third day of this year yyjjj 92003 Third day of 1992 923 Third day of 1992 tt003 Third day of this year tt3 Third day of this year 01003 Third day of 2001 See FDATE'S CENTURY ASSUMPTION ALGORITHM, below NOTE THAT FDATE WILL ACCEPT "JJJ" OF LESS THAN 1 & MORE THAN 366. ----------------------------------------------------------------- yyjjj tt1000 the 1000th day from beginning of this year tt0 last day of last year tt-1 next-to-last day of last year FDATE /Ff /Iccyyjjj /Od1 /A1992-1 produces... Monday December 30, 1991 FDATE /Ff /Iccyyjjj /Od1 /A19920 produces... Tuesday December 31, 1991 FDATE /Ff /Iccyyjjj /Od1 /A1992+1 produces... Wednesday January 1, 1992 FDATE /Ff /Iccyyjjj /Od1 /A1992366 produces... Thursday December 31, 1992 FDATE /Ff /Iccyyjjj /Od1 /A1992367 produces... Friday January 1, 1993 This feature allows limited date arithmetic with ordinary business Julian days. For example, 90 days from tt300 can be shown by: FDATE /Ff /Iyyjjj /Att390 GETTING DATE/TIME A FILE WAS CREATED ==================================== FORMAT EXAMPLES DISCUSSION ------ --------- ----------------------------- f MYFILE.1 Input format F (file) tells Fdate that /A and /B will specify filenames, and that Fdate should pick up the input date and time from the date/time stamp on a file. Example: FDATE /Ff /If /Afdate.exe /P"FDATE.EXE last updated: " /Ofull Note that if you specify /If, then both /A and /B will be interpreted as filenames. Because the input format applies to both /A and /B parms, it is not possible to put a filename in /A and a date literal in /B, and then (say) use the "comp" or "dif" function to compare them. You must first extract the file's date into an environment variable, and then compare that environment variable to the date literal. The only exception to this rule is the pseudodate "t" (i.e. /At or /Bt) which will pick up the current date and time from the system clock. This feature will allow you, for example, to compare the date of a file to today's date (see EXAMPLES). A filename may (but need not) be fully qualified: i.e. "MYFILE.1" and "C:\DBASE\WORKDIR\MYFILE.1" are both acceptable. A filename may contain wildcards. If it does, the date/time stamp will be retrieved from the first file that FDATE finds that meets the filespec. Giving FDATE a filespec containing a wildcard is pretty useless, but FDATE will not reject it. OUTPUT DATE FORMATS =================== FORMAT EXAMPLES COMMENTS ------ --------- ----------------------------- dd-mn3-yy 08-Feb-92 CompuServe-style date yy 93 2-digit year number ccyy 1993 4-digit year number (includes century) ccyymm 199302 useful for triggering monthly processing ccyymmdd 19930208 useful for putting current date in filename yymmdd 930208 PKZIP's Japanese date format mmdd 0208 mmddyy 020892 PKZIP's American date format mmddccyy 02081992 mm 02 2-digit month number zm 2 month number, no leading zeros dd 08 2-digit day-of-month number zd 8 day-of-month number, no leading zeros In the following formats, months precede days (American style) ------------------------------------------------------------------ mm/dd/ccyy 02/08/1993 mm-dd-ccyy 02-08-1993 mm.dd.ccyy 02.08.1993 British-style dates zm/zd/ccyy 2/8/1993 no leading zeros in day or month zm-zd-ccyy 2-8-1993 no leading zeros in day or month zm.zd.ccyy 2.8.1993 British-style dates mm/dd/yy 02/08/92 mm-dd-yy 02-08-92 mm.dd.yy 02.08.92 British-style dates zm/zd/yy 2/8/92 no leading zeros in day or month zm-zd-yy 2-8-92 no leading zeros in day or month zm.zd.yy 2.8.92 no leading zeros in day or month In the following formats, days precede months (European style) ------------------------------------------------------------------ ddmmccyy 02081993 ddmmyy 020893PKZIP's European date format dd/mm/ccyy 02/08/1993 dd-mm-ccyy 02-08-1993 dd.mm.ccyy 02.08.1993 British-style dates zd/zm/ccyy 2/8/1993 no leading zeros in day or month zd-zm-ccyy 2-8-1993 no leading zeros in day or month zd.zm.ccyy 2.8.1993 British-style dates dd/mm/yy 02/08/93 dd-mm-yy 02-08-93 dd.mm.yy 02.08.93 British-style dates zd/zm/yy 2/8/93 no leading zeros in day or month zd-zm-yy 2-8-93 no leading zeros in day or month zd.zm.yy 2.8.93 British-style dates DAY-OF-WEEK AND MONTH OUTPUT FORMATS ==================================== dow# 5 Sunday=1, Monday=2 .... Saturday=7. dow Thursday name of day of week jeudi if /Lfr specified Donnerstag if /Lgr specified dow3 Thu first 3 characters of name of day of week jeu if /Lfr specified Don if /Lgr specified mn February name of month fevrier if /Lfr specified Februar if /Lgr specified mn3 Feb first 3 characters of name of month fev if /Lfr specified Feb if /Lgr specified MISCELLANEOUS OUTPUT FORMATS ============================ full 9:05 pm on Wednesday February 5, 1992 9:05 pm, mercredi le 5 fevrier 1992 [/Lfr specified] 9:05 pm, miércoles el 5 de febrero de 1992 [/Lsp specified] Mittwoch, 5. Februar 1992, 21:05 [/Lgr specified] d1 Saturday, February 5, 1992 samedi le 5 fevrier 1992 [/Lfr specified] Mittwoch, 5. Februar 1992 [/Lgr specified] ddmn3yy 05Feb92 xxx 2CP (...Dec 25, 1992) This format represents dates for the years 1990-2024 in 3 characters of "extended hex" ("XX") notation. For more on XX notation, see the discussion of the #2XX function. The first character is the XX representation of the number of years since 1990 (1990 = 0, 1991 = 1, etc.). If you attempt to output a date outside of the 1990-2024 range in XXX format, Fdate will report an error (i.e. return "ERROR" and errorlevel of 1). The second and third characters contain the XX representation of the month-number and day-of-month-number, respectively. EXAMPLE: "1993 Feb 1" is represented as "321" EXAMPLE: "2000 Dec 25" is represented as "ACP". ----------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE that the following formats contain embedded spaces. Consequently they must be enclosed in double quotes. EXAMPLE: /O"mn zd, ccyy". ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "zd mn ccyy" 5 February 1992 "zd mn, ccyy" 5 February, 1992 "zd. mn ccyy" 5. February 1992 [German-style date format] "zd. mn3 ccyy" 5. Feb 1992 [German-style date format] "mn3 dd ccyy" Feb 05 1992 "mn3 dd, ccyy" Feb 05, 1992 "mn zd, ccyy" February 5, 1992 LEAP-YEAR FLAG OUTPUT FORMAT ============================ LY 0 "1" if date occurs in a leapyear, otherwise "0". 365 + this number gives total number of days in the year. 28 + this number gives total number of days in February. TIME OUTPUT FORMATS =================== See also: the section on the /T (parm /A time override) parameter. t1 9:05 am 9:05 pm tdos 9:05:10:10a format used in DOS's TIME command 9:05:10:10p HH:MM 09:05 24-hour time, hours:minutes 21:05 HHMM 0905 2105 HH:MM:SS 21:05:30 24-hour time, hours:minutes:seconds HHMMSS 210530 HH:MM:SS:CC 21:05:30:09 24-hour time, in HHMMSSCC 21053009 hours:minutes:seconds:hundredths of seconds BUSINESS JULIAN DATE OUTPUT FORMATS =================================== These are formats for "business julian" dates: dates expressed as the number of days from the beginning of the year, when January 1 is day 1. EXAMPLES: DATE BUSINESS JULIAN DATE ----------- -------------------- Jan 5, 1993 93005 Dec 31, 1993 93365 [Dec 31 is 365th day of year 1993] Dec 31, 1996 96366 [Dec 31 is 366th day, because 1996 is a leap year] FORMAT EXAMPLES DISCUSSION ------ --------- ----------------------------- ccyyjjj 1992027 Jan 27, 1992 yyjjj 92027 "Business Julian" date expressed as number jjj 027 of days since January 1 of the same year. zzj 27 Note leading zero suppression in "zzj". ABSOLUTE DATE/TIME OUTPUT FORMATS ================================= See also: the section on the /T (parm /A time override) parameter. month# 23927 "Absolute month": date expressed as number of months since the beginning of the calendar. Returns "1" for any date in January, 0001, "2" for any date in February, 0001, etc. day# 727198 "Absolute date": date expressed as number of days since the beginning of the calendar. Returns "1" for January 1, 0001, "2" for January 2, 0001, etc. minute# 33088 "Absolute minutes": time expressed as number of minutes since midnight, January 1, 1990. second# 633088 "Absolute seconds": time expressed as number of seconds since midnight, January 1, 1990. Running FDATE with /O parameter for an "absolute time" produces a number based on the current time of day and the date in the /A parm. If, on January 10, 1992 at 2 pm, you run FDATE this way: FDATE /Ff /Atoday /Ominute# it will produce the absolute minute for January 10, 1992 at 2 pm. If, on January 10, 1992 at 2 pm, you run FDATE this way: FDATE /Ff /A01-15-1992 /Imm-dd-ccyy /Ominute# it will produce the absolute minute for January 15, 1992 at 2 pm. /T: TIME OVERRIDE PARAMETER =============================== You may override Fdate's use of the current time -- for the /A parameter only -- by using the /T parameter. The /T parameter specifies a time of day in the 24-hour format hh:mm:ss (hours:minutes:seconds). Leading zeros in each of the three fields (hh, mm, ss) may be omitted. The seconds field may be omitted; if omitted, it defaults to "00". Note that the /T parm overrides the time portion of the /A date, but it does NOT override the time portion of the /B date. If, on January 10, 1992 at 2 pm, you run FDATE this way: FDATE /Ff /A01-15-1992 /Imm-dd-ccyy /Ominute# /T5:12 it will produce the absolute minute for January 15, 1992 at 5:12 am. The most frequent and important use of the /T parm is with the format function (/Ff) to obtain the "absolute" minute of a specific date and time. Once we have the absolute minutes of two different date/times, we can easily obtain the time between them (expressed in days, hours, and minutes) by using Fdate's #dif, #idiv, and #mod functions. (In the EXAMPLES section, see the example that contains FORATIME.BAT.) It is also possible to use /T in conjunction with the time compare function (/Ftcomp). @echo ON cls rem Since both /A and /B default to the current date and time, rem and since /T parm overrides the time only for the /A parm ... rem ... during daytime hours, this will always return LT Fdate /ftcomp /T00:00:00 rem ... during daytime hours, this will always return GT Fdate /ftcomp /T23:59:59 /J: JUSTIFYING OUTPUT ========================== Using the /J (justify) parameter it is possible to right, center, or left- justify FDATE's output. See the discussion of JUSTIFYING OUTPUT in the section on string-handling functions. HOW TO PUT FDATE OUTPUT INTO AN ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE ==================================================== CALL A BATCH FILE ================= The most basic way to put FDATE's output into an environment variable, although not the most convenient, is to: * use the /P (prefix string) feature to create a DOS "SET" statement, * redirect the output to a batch file, and then * CALL the batch file. Since CALL first appeared in DOS 3.3, you will need DOS 3.3 or greater to use this technique. FDATE /Ff /Atoday /O"mn zd, ccyy" /P"@SET FDATE=" >JUNKTEMP.BAT call JUNKTEMP.BAT del JUNKTEMP.BAT USE AN ENVIRONMENT-MANIPULATION UTILITY ======================================= There are shareware and public domain utilities that are written specifically to manipulate environment variables, and do that job very well. FDATE's output can be put into an environment variable by piping it to one of these utilities. When piping FDATE output to a utility, you can prevent the output from being ECHOed to the screen by redirecting the output to NUL. Of these utilities, I can especially recommend Bob Stephan's GET (because it is very inexpensive and very powerful and flexible) and PC Magazine's STRINGS (free to ZiffNet members). See the EXAMPLES section for examples of how to use STRINGS and GET to put FDATE's output into an environment variable. As of March 14, 1994, the current version of GET is 2.6. On CompuServe, use IBMFF to look for GET25.ZIP (which contains version 2.5 and the full documentation file) and GET26u.ZIP (the version 2.6 update of GET, which contains version 2.6 of GET, but not the full documentation). Look in CIS:IBMSYS, Library 1, or for GET.ZIP in ZNT:UTILFORUM, lib 16. GET is also available from the Public Software Library in Houston. As of February 14, 1992, the current version of STRINGS is 1.3. On CompuServe, look for STRING.ZIP in the PC Magazine Utilities Lib of ZNT:UTILFORUM. STRHYP.ZIP contains good hypertext documentation on STRINGS. FDATE'S /V PARAMETER ==================== Manipulating the environment is an incredibly tricky business. There are questions of the local versus master environment, the version of DOS you are running, and the environment under which you are running (DOS, Windows, QuarterDeck, Carousel). In order to keep FDATE focussed on date-related issues, versions of Fdate prior to 6.1 did not attempt to put output directly into an environment variable. Instead, FDATE's output was written to standard output, that is, it was displayed on the screen. Output could then be redirected to a batch file, or piped to a utility (such as STRINGS or GET), that would put the output into an environment variable. Starting with version 6.1, Fdate supports a /V (environment variable) parameter. A user can use /V to tell Fdate to put its output directly into an environment variable in the "parent" environment. NOTE that due to the complexities of manipulating the environment, there may be circumstances where /V doesn't work. These include running FDATE when you have shelled out to DOS from another program, have put the command processor in upper memory (UMB) (see below), are running under Carousel, etc. In such cases, you may be able to use one of the more basic techniques described above. For a list of environments in which the /V option has been reported as NOT working, see the next section. /Vevar tells Fdate to put output into an environmental variable whose name is "evar". For example: Fdate /Ff /Vdate1 will set the environment variable DATE1 to the current date. If you type SET at the DOS prompt, you should see something like: DATE1=Friday February 14, 1992 If you specify /V without an evar name, the evar name defaults to FDATE. Example : Fdate /Ff /V produces: FDATE=Friday February 14, 1992 If you do not use /V, Fdate output is written to standard output, i.e. to the screen. /V WHEN RUNNING UNDER MICROSOFT WINDOWS ======================================= Starting with FDATE version 8.4 -- thanks to a Turbo Pascal routine from the Turbo Professional library (see below) provided by Kim Kokkonen of TurboPower Software -- FDATE's /V parameter works even in a Windows DOS box, assuming you have enough environment space available. The problem is that when you shell out to a DOS box under Windows, the size of the DOS environment is normally limited to the amount actually in use by DOS at the time when you first started Windows (rounded up to multiples of 16). In short, when you shell out to DOS under Windows, you have little or no free environment space left. The trick to giving yourself a decent amount of environment space in a Windows DOS box, is to edit SYSTEM.INI and put the following line in the [NonWindowsApp] section: [NonWindowsApp] CommandEnvSize=1024 This tip is from Brian Livingston's "Windows 3.1 Secrets", p. 225. According to Livingston, "This command allocates 1,024 bytes of conventional memory to the environment space of each DOS session you start. (You can choose any value you want, but it should probably be a multiple of 16 bytes...)" It's a good idea to be generous here, because the default prompt for a Windows DOS box (the one with the highlighted bar across the top of the screen) consumes a lot more environment space than the simple "$p$g" of the conventional DOS prompt. An alternative technique, if you're running Windows 3.0 or earlier, is always to start Windows from a batch file that contains the following line, executed BEFORE you start Windows: SET DUMMY=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX This will reserve a chunk of environment space that will be copied into the environment in the Windows DOS box. Then, as one of the first statements in any batch file that you run under Windows, put SET DUMMY= This will free up the environment space used by all those "X"s. For a good treatment of running DOS apps under Windows, including a discussion of the environment, I recommend Brian Livingston's WINDOWS 3.1 SECRETS, chapter 7. /V WHEN RUNNING UNDER WINDOWS NT ======================================= Early in 1996, reports began trickling in of users having difficulty with Fdate's /V feature (setting the value of an environment variable) when running under Windows NT. To make a long story short, in many cases, Fdate's /V feature doesn't work under Windows NT. Unfortunately, this situation cannot be corrected. Microsoft has never made it easy to access the environment programmatically, and the situation has become worse in Windows 95 and Windows NT. The situation has become so difficult that TurboPower Software, which markets add-on utilities, has withdrawn support for utilities that change environment variables. Since Fdate uses these utiltities, it is virtually certain that I will ever be able to make Fdate's /V feature work under NT, in cases where it does not now work. This does not mean, however, that Fdate can't be used with NT. What it means is that, when running Fdate under NT, we have to fall back on a more basic method of setting an environment variable. This involves creating a temporary batch file that sets the variable, then running and deleting the batch file. It's primitive, but it works. This technique is described elsewhere in this documentation, but I will repeat it here for convenience's sake. CALL A BATCH FILE ================= The most basic way to put FDATE's output into an environment variable is to: * use the /P (prefix string) feature to create a DOS "SET" statement and * redirect the output to a temporary batch file, and then * CALL the batch file, and then * delete the batch file (clean up after the operation). EXAMPLE: FDATE /Ff /At /Occyymmdd /P"@SET FDATE=" >JUNKTEMP.BAT call JUNKTEMP.BAT del JUNKTEMP.BAT In this example, the result will be that the FDATE environment variable is set to today's date, in ccyymmdd format. Turbo Professional: "Highly Recommended" Thanks to a Turbo Pascal routine from the Turbo Professional library (provided by Kim Kokkonen of TurboPower Software) FDATE's /V parameter works even in a Windows DOS box. If you do serious Turbo Pascal programming, you should have Turbo Professional or Object Professional library. Turbo Professional is a library of about 600 routines to do all sorts of useful stuff in Turbo Pascal programs, including: CRT unit emulation, with many added features Popup windows, virtual screens, and pulldown menu systems. Full screen data entry with formatting and data validation. Complete mouse support, keyboard macros, runtime error recovery. A context sensitive popup help unit. Units for picking from lists of items, including filenames. Easy and reliable ways to make your program memory resident. Interrupt service routine handlers, extended & expanded memory access. BCD arithmetic, including transcendental functions & the Form routine Sorting and searching. Extensive string manipulation & strings longer than 255 characters. Arrays larger than 64K (in RAM, EMS, or paged to disk) For more information, call TurboPower at 1-800-333-4160 (9-5 Mountain time), send CompuServe mail to 76004,2611, or visit the CompuServe TurboPower forum in PCVENB section 6. /V WHEN USING 4DOS, NDOS, AND UMB ================================= -------------------------------------------------------------- I have received the following report from Aran Spence about circumstances in which FDATE /V will not set a variable in the master environment. This report leads me to believe that FDATE /V may also fail to work with MS-DOS if you put the command processor or the environment in Upper Memory. Note, however, that this behavior has not been tested with FDATE 8.4's new environment-handling routines. -------------------------------------------------------------- Steve, There are options with 4DOS and NDOS to load the environment and part of the command processor into upper memory blocks. When one of these options is used, FDATE /V can't find the environment and produces the message: ERROR @echo ERROR: Master environment not found @pause If you have a 4DOS.INI file, it has to contain these lines for FDATE /V to work: UMBEnvironment = No UMBLoad = No If you have NDOS, the SHELL statement in CONFIG.SYS cannot contain any reference to UMB loading via /U (which puts NDOS.COM in UMB), nor can it contain a statement of the form: /E:xxxU (which puts xxx bytes of the environment in UMB via the "U" parameter). Also, NSTART.BTM or 4START.BTM cannot contain SET NDSHELL=/e+xxxU /U in which both U's represent UMB loading of the command processor and the environment during secondary shells. FDATE'S ERROR HANDLING ====================== If FDATE detects an error: (1) it will return an errorlevel of 1 (rather than 0), and (2) its output will be 3 lines: * the word ERROR * a DOS batch-file ECHO statement that displays an error message * a DOS batch-file PAUSE statement If Fdate output is displayed directly, or redirected to NUL, you can detect an error by testing the errorlevel for a value of 1. If Fdate output is piped to an environment manipulation utility such as STRINGS or GET, the environment variable will be set to ERROR. Errorlevel will be set by STRINGS/GET, and will probably be 0. In such a case, the only way to detect an error is to test the environment variable for the value ERROR. If FDATE output is redirected to a batch file, which is then CALLed to set an environment variable, the batch file will: * set the environment variable to ERROR, * ECHO the error message, and * pause. You can detect an error by testing errorlevel for the value 1 either before or after you CALL the batch file, or by testing the environment variable for the value ERROR, AFTER you have CALLed the batch file. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EXAMPLE: rem use FDATE to check validity of year in parm %1 Fdate /Fv /Imm-dd-ccyy /ATT-TT-%1 > nul if errorlevel 1 echo Year parm [%1] is not valid. if errorlevel 1 goto endit EXAMPLE: rem use GET with FDATE, to put FDATE output into %year% Fdate /Ff /Imm-dd-ccyy /ATT-TT-%1 /Occyy | GET ZE /V%year% >nul if (%year%)==(ERROR) echo Year parm [%1] is not valid. if (%year%)==(ERROR) goto endit EXAMPLE: rem use a batch file with FDATE, to put FDATE output into %year% Fdate /Ff /Imm-dd-ccyy /ATT-TT-%1 /Occyy /P"@set year=">junktemp.bat call junktemp.bat del junktemp.bat if errorlevel 1 echo Year parm [%1] is not valid. if errorlevel 1 goto endit EXAMPLES OF HOW TO USE FDATE ============================ :01 Display Fdate output on screen :================================================================== FDATE /Ff /At /Od1 /P"Today is " :02 Redirect FDATE output to a file :================================================================== FDATE /Ff /At /Od1 /P"Today is " >FDATE.OUT :03 Put FDATE output in an environment variable using a batch file :================================================================== FDATE /Ff /Atoday /O"mn zd, ccyy" /P"@SET DATE1=" >JUNKTEMP.BAT call JUNKTEMP.BAT del JUNKTEMP.BAT :04 Put FDATE output in an environment variable using /V parm :================================================================== FDATE /Ff /Atoday /O"mn zd, ccyy" /Vdate1 :05 Put FDATE output in an environment variable using STRINGS :================================================================== FDATE /Ff /Atoday /O"mn zd, ccyy" |STRINGS date1= ASK >NUL :06 Put FDATE output in an environment variable using GET :================================================================== FDATE /Ff /Atoday /O"mn zd, ccyy" |GET ZE /Vdate1 >NUL :07 Get user input :================================================================== @echo off cls echo Enter a date in mm-dd-ccyy format for validation :: get user input fdate /fget /vUserDate1 :: validate user input using /Fv (validate function) fdate /fv /A%UserDate1% >nul if errorlevel 1 echo Invalid date: %UserDate1% if errorlevel 1 goto endit :: put your batch file processing here ... echo Processing date: %UserDate1% :endit :: cleanup set UserDate1= :08 Get a user menu selection :================================================================== @echo off :start cls echo =========================================================== echo MAKE A MENU SELECTION echo =========================================================== echo A DIR *.* echo B DIR *.BAT echo. echo Press ESC to exit echo. echo =========================================================== FDATE /FgetK /Q"Press letter of your choice> " /KABx /V if (%FDATE%)==(A) goto Choice_%FDATE% if (%FDATE%)==(B) goto Choice_%FDATE% if (%FDATE%)==(x) goto endit echo Program logic error. Invalid choice [%FDATE%] pause goto Start :CHOICE_A cls echo Processing choice %FDATE% ... DIR *.* /W /P pause goto Start :CHOICE_B echo Processing choice %FDATE% ... DIR *.BAT /W /P pause goto Start :endit set choice= cls :09 Change a date from one format into another :================================================================== :: change date from mm-dd-yy format to ccyymmdd format FDATE /Ff /Imm-dd-yy /A05-08-92 /Occyymmdd :10 Find the difference in days between two dates :================================================================== FDATE /Fdif /Imm-dd-ccyy /A%date1% /B%date2% /vdiff echo The difference is %diff% days. :11 Find the elapsed days/hours/minutes between two date/times. :=================================================================== This batch file was developed in cooperation with Walter Ledge, a sysop for CompuServe's CRFORUM. In addition to being a good example of how to use Fdate's /T parm and "#idiv" function, it should be useful for other CompuServe sysops who need to submit the same reports that Walt does. Here's Walt's message that started the whole thing. As an assistant sysop on the CRFORUM, I have to submit reports to CIS on the number of messages that are posted on our forum in terms of time per 1,000 messages -- i.e., say, I know that 1,000 messages were posted between the hours of 17:05 on July 5 and 3:03 on July 7. I need to know how many hours and minutes it took for those 1000 messages to be posted. So I would like some way to use FDATE to calculate the difference between those two times (which, of course, include the dates). FORATIM2.BAT is an improvement of the original FORATIME.BAT batch file. FORATIM2.BAT uses the /Fget function, which first appeared in Fdate 8.3, to get user input from the terminal, rather than requiring all parameters to be entered at the command line as FORATIME.BAT did. @echo off cls :: ------------------------------------------------------ :: FORATIM2.BAT batch file :: :: FUNCTION :: Calculate the elapsed time (in days and minutes) :: between some "begin" date/time and some "end" date/time :: :: ------------------------------------------------------ ECHO -------------------------------------------------------------- ECHO Calculate elapsed time between two date/times ECHO -------------------------------------------------------------- :BegDate Fdate /Fget /VBEGdate /Q"Enter BEGIN DATE (mm-dd-ccyy): " if (%BegDate%)==() goto Cleanup :BegTime Fdate /Fget /VBEGtime /Q"Enter BEGIN TIME (hh:mm).....: " if (%BegTime%)==() goto Cleanup :: validate date & time fdate /fv /A%BEGdate% /T%BEGtime% >nul if errorlevel 1 echo Invalid date/time if errorlevel 1 goto BegDate :: get absolute minute of start date/time. fdate /ff /ominute# /A%BEGdate% /T%BEGtime% /VABStime1 if errorlevel 1 goto BegTime fdate /ff /ofull /A%BEGdate% /T%BEGtime% /Vfull1 :: echo. :EndDate Fdate /Fget /VENDdate /Q"Enter END.. DATE (mm-dd-ccyy): " if (%EndDate%)==() goto Cleanup :EndTime Fdate /Fget /VENDtime /Q"Enter END.. TIME (hh:mm).....: " if (%EndTime%)==() goto Cleanup :: validate date & time fdate /fv /A%ENDdate% /T%ENDtime% >nul if errorlevel 1 echo Invalid date/time if errorlevel 1 goto EndDate :: get absolute minute of end date/time. fdate /ff /ominute# /A%ENDdate% /T%ENDtime% /VABStime2 if errorlevel 1 goto EndTime fdate /ff /ofull /A%ENDdate% /T%ENDtime% /Vfull2 echo. ECHO Calculating elapsed time... :: calculate the difference between ABStime1 and ABStime2 fdate /f#dif /A%ABStime1% /B%ABStime2% /VMinutes :: calculate the number of hours in it took fdate /f#Idiv /A%minutes% /B60 /VHours :: calculate the number of extra minutes it took fdate /f#mod /A%minutes% /B60 /VMins echo. echo Between %full1% echo and %full2% echo. echo Elapsed time was: echo %hours% hours and %mins% minutes fdate /f#Idiv /A%minutes% /B1440 /Vday1 fdate /f#mod /A%minutes% /B1440 /Vmin1 fdate /f#Idiv /A%min1% /B60 /Vhour1 fdate /f#mod /A%min1% /B60 /Vmin2 echo or echo %day1% day(s) %hour1% hour(s) and %min2% minute(s). echo. echo. :: :cleanup set ENDdate= set BEGdate= set BEGtime= set ENDtime= set full1= set full2= set minutes= set ABStime1= set ABStime2= set day1= set hour1= set min1= set min2= set mins= set hours= :endit :13 Find the elapsed years/months/days between two dates. :=================================================================== @echo off :: illustrate Fdate's Month# output format cls echo -------------------------------------------------------------- echo YMD_DIF.BAT Calculate elapsed time between two dates echo -------------------------------------------------------------- :: -------------------------------------------------------------- :D1 Fdate /Fget /VD1 /Q"Enter date #1 (mm-dd-ccyy), or ENTER to quit: " if (%D1%)==() goto Cleanup :: validate date Fdate /Fv /A%D1% >nul if errorlevel 1 echo Invalid date if errorlevel 1 goto D1 :: translate date into various formats, including absolute month Fdate /Ff /oMonth# /A%D1% /VAbsMonth1 Fdate /Ff /oday# /A%D1% /VAbsDay1 Fdate /Ff /A%D1% /VFull1 Fdate /Ff /odd /A%D1% /VDd1 :: -------------------------------------------------------------- :D2 Fdate /Fget /VD2 /Q"Enter date #2 (mm-dd-ccyy), or ENTER to quit: " echo. if (%D2%)==() goto Cleanup :: validate date Fdate /Fv /A%D2% >nul if errorlevel 1 echo Invalid date if errorlevel 1 goto D2 :: translate date Fdate /Ff /oMonth# /A%D2% /VAbsMonth2 Fdate /Ff /oday# /A%D2% /VAbsDay2 Fdate /Ff /A%D2% /VFull2 Fdate /Ff /odd /A%D2% /VDd2 :: -------------------------------------------------------------- :: verify that D2 is later than D1 Fdate /Fcomp /A%D2% /B%D1% /v if (%Fdate%)==(GT) goto EndIf1 echo D2 must be later than D1. Please try again. echo. goto D1 :EndIf1 :: verify that D2 is in a later month than D1 Fdate /F#comp /A%AbsMonth2% /B%Absmonth1% /v if (%Fdate%)==(GT) goto EndIf2 :: they are in the same month Fdate /Fdif /A%D1% /B%D2% /P"Difference is " /S" days." echo. goto Cleanup :EndIf2 :: -------------------------------------------------------------- :: get difference in months Fdate /F#dif /A%AbsMonth2% /B%Absmonth1% /vMonthsDif :: compare days of month Fdate /F#comp /A%Dd2% /B%Dd1% /v if not (%Fdate%)==(LT) goto EndIf3 :: Dd2 is less than Dd1 ... subtract 1 from (add -1 to) MonthsDif Fdate /F#add /A%MonthsDif% /B-1 /VMonthsDif :EndIf3 :: do month arithmetic, to get a date (D3) that is :: less than 1 month prior to D2 Fdate /Fm /A%D1% /N%MonthsDif% /Omm-dd-ccyy /VD3 :: find difference in days between D3 & D2 Fdate /Fdif /A%D3% /B%D2% /Vdaysdif :: -------------------------------------------------------------- echo Between %Full1% & %Full2% ... echo %MonthsDif% month(s) %DaysDif% day(s) :: calculate the number of years, by dividing MonthsDif by 12 Fdate /F#Idiv /A%Monthsdif% /B12 /VYearsDif :: calculate the number of extra months Fdate /F#mod /A%MonthsDif% /B12 /VMonthsDif echo or %YearsDif% year(s) %MonthsDif% month(s) %DaysDif% day(s) :: -------------------------------------------------------------- :cleanup echo. echo. set D1= set D2= set D3= set AbsMonth1= set AbsMonth2= set AbsDay1= set AbsDay2= set Full1= set Full2= set Dd1= set Dd2= set YearsDif= set MonthsDif= set DaysDif= set Fdate= :endit :14 Determine how long it took a program to run :================================================================== @echo off cls ECHO ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ECHO DETERMINE HOW LONG IT TOOK A PROGRAM TO RUN ECHO The demo will run for 1 - 60 seconds. ECHO ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── PAUSE cls :: Get the time (in julian seconds) that the program began running set PgmName=DemoFake_Pgm FDATE /Ff /Osecond# /VBegS FDATE /Ff /Ohh:mm:ss /P"%PgmName% execution begins at " :: ───────── DEMO BEGIN ────────────────────────────────────────── :: For purposes of this demo, we simulate execution of a :: program by looping until the minute changes. In your real :: batch file, you would put your program statements here. :: ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── FDATE /Ff /Ohhmm /vBegM :BegLoop rem Since this is a demo, give the folks something to watch FDATE /Ff /Osecond# /vSeconds FDATE /F#dif /A%Seconds% /B%BegS% /P".... elapsed time: " /S" seconds." FDATE /Ff /Ohhmm /vNowM if (%NowM%)==(%BegM%) goto BegLoop set BegM= set NowM= :: ───────── DEMO END ────────────────────────────────────────── :: Get the time (in julian seconds) that the program finished FDATE /Ff /Osecond# /vEndS :: tell the user the time that the program finished FDATE /Ff /Ohh:mm:ss /P"%PgmName% execution ends at " :: calculate run time (difference between start time and end time) FDATE /F#dif /A%EndS% /B%BegS% /vSeconds :: convert seconds to minutes + seconds format FDATE /F#idiv /A%Seconds% /B60 /vMinutes FDATE /F#mod /A%Seconds% /B60 /vMinSecs :: tell the user how long the program took to run echo Runtime: %Seconds% seconds (%Minutes% minutes %MinSecs% seconds) :: cleanup set PgmName= set BegS= set EndS= set Seconds= set Minutes= set MinSecs= :15 Find years when a given date fell on a given day of the week :================================================================== [WHATDAY.BAT This program has virtually no data validation, but if you are careful to enter valid input data, it does the job.] @echo off :: ---------------------------------------------------------------- :: This program calculates the years (within a specified range) that a :: certain day of a certain month fell on a certain day of the week. :: :: Note that we calculate and test both the day of the week and the :: month. This is because, for example, "February 29" of :: a non-leapyear (an invalid date) :: will be converted to the valid date of March 1. :: So we want to be sure that in a given year, February 29 not only :: occurred on the weekday in question, but also actually :: occurred in February. :: ---------------------------------------------------------------- cls echo This program calculates the years (within a specified range) that a echo certain day of a certain month fell on a certain day of the week. echo. echo Please enter the day of the week that you want to search for. echo 1 = Sunday echo 2 = Monday echo 3 = Tuesday echo 4 = Wednesday echo 5 = Thursday echo 6 = Friday echo 7 = Saturday echo. fdate /fgetk /K1234567x /Q"Please press a number, or ESC to exit > " /vdow if (%Dow%)==(x) goto endit if (%Dow%)==(1) set DowName=Sunday if (%Dow%)==(2) set DowName=Monday if (%Dow%)==(3) set DowName=Tuesday if (%Dow%)==(4) set DowName=Wednesday if (%Dow%)==(5) set DowName=Thursday if (%Dow%)==(6) set DowName=Friday if (%Dow%)==(7) set DowName=Saturday echo You chose day of the week: %dowName% pause fdate /fget /Q"Please enter first year in year range > " /vBegYr fdate /fget /Q"Please enter last_ year in year range > " /vEndYr fdate /fget /Q"Please enter month number (1-12) > " /vMonNum fdate /fget /Q"Please enter day__ number (1-31) > " /vDayNum set Yr=%BegYr% fdate /fsubstr /a-2 /q00%MonNum% /vMonNum rem >whatday.txt cls echo Looking for %MonNum%/%DayNum% on %DowName% echo between %BegYr% and %EndYr% echo ---------------------------------------------- echo Looking for %MonNum%/%DayNum% on %DowName% >>whatday.txt echo between %BegYr% and %EndYr% >>whatday.txt echo ---------------------------------------------- >>whatday.txt :LoopTop fdate /fsubstr /a-4 /q0000%yr% /vyr echo Testing %yr% fdate /ff /Idd-mm-ccyy /A%DayNum%-%MonNum%-%Yr% /v fdate /ff /Idd-mm-ccyy /A%DayNum%-%MonNum%-%Yr% /odow# /vdow# fdate /ff /Idd-mm-ccyy /A%DayNum%-%MonNum%-%Yr% /omm /vmm if (%Dow#%)==(%Dow%) if (%MonNum%)==(%mm%) echo %fdate% if (%Dow#%)==(%Dow%) if (%MonNum%)==(%mm%) echo %fdate% >>Whatday.txt fdate /f#add /A%yr% /B1 /vYr fdate /f#comp /A%yr% /B%EndYr% /v if (%fdate%)==(GT) goto LoopEnd goto LoopTop :LoopEnd cls type whatday.txt echo. echo This data has been written to file: Whatday.txt echo. :endit set Yr= set BegYr= set EndYr= set mm= set Dow= set Dow#= set DowName= set fdate= set MonNum= set DayNum= :16 Find calendar date corresponding to a "business Julian" date :================================================================== rem business julian date is 1992:045. Note input format CCYYjjj FDATE /Ff /A1992045 /Iccyyjjj /Od1 rem You don't need to left-zero-fill the day FDATE /Ff /A199245 /Iccyyjjj /Od1 rem You can assume the century, if you specify the YYjjj input format FDATE /Ff /A9245 /Iyyjjj /Od1 :17 Set your PC's date to a business julian date :================================================================== @echo off goto enddoc --------------------------------------------------------------------- This batch file was created by Aran Spence [CIS: 70162,3044]. Its function is to emulate the DOS DATE command, but allow the user to set the date using a business julian date format (yyjjj) instead of mm-dd-yy. Note the format is YYjjj. This is the BUSINESS julian date: a date expressed as the number of days from the beginning of the year, when January 1 is day 1. date BUSINESS julian date ----------- -------------------- Jan 5, 1992 92005 Jan 5, 1993 93005 Dec 31, 1993 93365 [Dec 31 is 365th day of year 1993] As Aran originally wrote it, the user-prompt was virtually identical to that of the DATE command. I have modified his original version, so it now looks less like the DATE command but displays a bit more information, and so it can operate from the command line. If the user enters a business julian date as a command-line parameter, JDATE resets the date to that julian date. EXAMPLE: JDATE 92005 If there is no input parameter, /fget is used to prompt the user for a date. Note that the user must enter both of the year digits (yy), but may enter an abbreviated set of day digits (jjj). That is, for julian day 92005, the user is permitted to enter 925. One handy use for JDATE is simply to find out what the current business julian date is. --------------------------------------------------------------------- :enddoc SET NewJD=%1 if not (%NewJD%)==() goto GotDate :ShowDate Fdate /Ff /Od1 /P"Current Gregorian date: " Fdate /Ff /Oyyjjj /P"'Business Julian' date: " :GetDate GET S "Enter new date (yyddd): " /VNewJD /L if (%NewJD%)==() goto endit :GotDate Fdate /Ff /A%NewJD% /Omm-dd-yy /Iyyjjj /VNewGD if errorlevel 1 echo Invalid date "%NewJD%" if errorlevel 1 goto GetDate :: reset the date DATE %NewGD% echo SYSTEM DATE HAS BEEN RESET Fdate /Ff /Od1 /P"Current Gregorian date: " Fdate /Ff /Oyyjjj /P"'Business Julian' date: " :endit SET NewJD= SET NewGD= echo. :18 Determine if parm %1 contains a valid date :================================================================== COMMENT Note that we throw away the FDATE output by redirecting it to NUL. All we really want here is the errorlevel, which tells us whether or not the string in %1 is a valid year. Fdate /Fv /Imm-dd-ccyy /A%1 >nul if errorlevel 1 echo Parm 1 was not a valid date: %1 if errorlevel 1 goto endit :: :: Put the body of your batch file here. :: :endit :19 "Roll your own" date format :================================================================== @echo of cls :: EXAMPLE A: create a date in the format of the DOS "date" command :: format, followed by the DOS "time" command format :: get the three-character day-of-week name Fdate /Ff /Odow3 /Vx :: add mm-dd-ccyy to it Fdate /Ff /Omm-dd-ccyy /p"%x% " /Vx :: add the DOS "time" format (new output format in Fdate 8.6) Fdate /Ff /Otdos /p"%x% " /Vx echo Date/time = %x% :: EXAMPLE B: create a date in custom-made format: yymn3dd Fdate /Ff /Oyy /Vx Fdate /Ff /Omn3 /P"%x%" /Vx Fdate /Ff /Odd /P"%x%" /Vx echo Today is %x% :: EXAMPLE C: create a date with day and month date-parts right justified :: and padded with spaces, such as " 1- 1-1995" for Jan 1, 1995 fdate /ff /ozd /j"R 2" /vzd fdate /ff /ozm /j"R 2" /vzm fdate /ff /occyy /p"%zd%-%zm%-" /v echo Today is [%fdate%] :20 Find the 4th Thursday in November (Thanksgiving) :================================================================== Fdate /Fw /D5 /N4 /A11-01-%year% /Imm-dd-ccyy /Od1 /P"Thanksgiving: " :22 On a date, show what anniversary it is for some event :================================================================== See HOLIDAYS.BAT demo batch file :23 Show a list of holidays in a given year :================================================================== See HOLIDAYS.BAT demo batch file :24 Show a list of Federal holidays in a given year :================================================================== See HOLIFEDS.BAT demo batch file :25 Determine if a year is valid, and evenly divisible by 4 :================================================================== @echo off cls echo FUNCTION: Accept a year parm (CCYY) as parameter 1. Determine if echo the year is an election or inauguration year in the United States. echo =================================================================== rem verify %1 is a valid year Fdate /Fv /Imm-dd-ccyy /A01-01-%1 >nul if errorlevel 1 echo Year parm [%1] is not valid. if errorlevel 1 goto endit Fdate /Ff /Imm-dd-ccyy /A01-01-%1 /p"@set year=">junktemp.bat call junktemp.bat Fdate /F#mod /A%1 /B4 /p"@set mod=">junktemp.bat call junktemp.bat if (%mod%)==(0) echo %1 is an American presidential election year. if (%mod%)==(1) echo %1 is an American presidential inauguration year. for %%v in (2 3) do if (%mod%)==(%%v) echo %1 is not an election year. for %%v in (2 3) do if (%mod%)==(%%v) echo %1 is not an inauguration year. set mod= :endit if exist junktemp.bat del junktemp.bat :30 Compare a file's date to today's date :================================================================== rem Compare today's date to the date on the filename in %1 Fdate /Fcomp /At /If /B%1 /Vcomp if (%comp%)==(EQ) echo %1 was created or updated today set comp= :31 Compare two files' date/time using COMPARE-FUNCTION ERRORLEVELS :================================================================== COMMENT There are many ways to check errorlevels. This example shows several of them. @echo off cls SET F1=FDATE.BAT SET F2=FDATE.EXE fdate /FTcomp /If /A%f1% /B%F2% /P"%f1% is " /S" %f2%" if errorlevel 101 if not errorlevel 103 echo %f1% is LT/EQ %f2% if errorlevel 102 echo %f1% is GT/EQ %f2% if errorlevel 101 if not errorlevel 102 echo %f1% is older than %f2% if errorlevel 102 if not errorlevel 103 echo %f1% is same age as %f2% if errorlevel 103 if not errorlevel 104 echo %f1% is younger than %f2% if errorlevel 101 if not errorlevel 103 echo %f1% at least as old as %f2% if errorlevel 102 echo %f1% is no older than %f2% if errorlevel 101 if not errorlevel 102 echo errorlevel is 101 if errorlevel 102 if not errorlevel 103 echo errorlevel is 102 if errorlevel 103 if not errorlevel 104 echo errorlevel is 103 SET F1= SET F2= :endit :32 Display a list of all files that were created/updated today. :================================================================== @echo off if (%1)==(SUBROUTINE) goto %2 CLS ECHO FILES MEETING FILESPEC [%1] THAT WERE CREATED OR UPDATED TODAY REM The batch file calls itself: Its own name is in parm %0 for %%v in (%1) do CALL %0 SUBROUTINE CHECKFILE %%v set comp= goto endit :CHECKFILE shift shift rem Compare today's date to the date on the %1 file Fdate /Fcomp /If /A%1 /Vcomp rem echo the filename if the file was created/updated today if (%comp%)==(EQ) echo %1 :endit :33 MIN_MATH.BAT -- "time arithmetic" in minutes :=================================================================== @echo off cls :: MIN_MATH.BAT -- Add or subtract time, in minutes, from the present :: Get number of minutes from parm1, if present. otherwise, use 4 minutes :: not that Minutes can contain a negative number, if we wish to subtract :: some minutes set Minutes=4 if not (%1)==() set Minutes=%1 :: get the absolute minute NOW :: Alternatively, you can use the /A parm and the /T parm :: to start from the date and time of your choice. fdate /ff /ominute# /vAbsMin :: add a certain number of minutes fdate /f#add /a%AbsMin% /b%Minutes% /VNewMin :: display the results fdate /ff /iminute# /ofull /a%AbsMin% /p"We add %Minutes% minutes to " fdate /ff /iminute# /ofull /a%NewMin% /p"producing: " set Minutes= set AbsMin= set NewMin= echo. :endit :34 TIME_SET.BAT -- "time arithmetic" -- set TIME :=================================================================== @echo off :: advance the time by 3 hours, then set it back again set Minutes=180 cls FDATE /FF /Ofull /P"It is now " :: get the absolute minutes now fdate /ff /ominute# /vAbsMin :: add a certain number of minutes fdate /f#add /a%AbsMin% /b%Minutes% /VNewMin :: reset the time and date fdate /ff /a%NewMin% /Iminute# /omm-dd-yy /vdate fdate /ff /a%NewMin% /Iminute# /ohh:mm /vtime time %time% date %date% echo %Minutes% minutes added... FDATE /FF /Ofull /P"It is now " ECHO. ECHO DOING SOME WORK ... ECHO. FDATE /FF /Ofull /P"It is now " :: get the absolute minutes now fdate /ff /ominute# /vAbsMin :: subtract (add negative) a certain number of minutes fdate /f#add /a%AbsMin% /b-%Minutes% /VNewMin :: reset the time and date fdate /ff /a%NewMin% /Iminute# /omm-dd-yy /vdate fdate /ff /a%NewMin% /Iminute# /ohh:mm /vtime time %time% date %date% echo %Minutes% minutes subtracted ... FDATE /FF /Ofull /P"It is now " set Minutes= set AbsMin= set NewMin= set time= set date= echo. :endit :41 Delete files more than X days old (use a batch-file subroutine) :================================================================== See the COMMENTARY that follows the text of the batch file. @echo off if (%1)==(SUBROUTINE) goto %2 cls goto EndDoc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OLDFILES.BAT This batch file shows how to do work on files that are older than %NumDays%. The PROCESS! subroutine can be modified to do any kind of work you want. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- :EndDoc :: set the number of days in the past. if this value is not passed :: in via parameter %1, it defaults to 3 days set NumDays=%1 if (%NumDays%)==() SET NumDays=3 echo ------------------------------------------------------------------ echo PROCESSING FILES CREATED MORE THAN %NumDays% DAYS AGO echo ------------------------------------------------------------------ for %%v in (*.*) do CALL %0 SUBROUTINE PROCESS! %%v echo ------------------------------------------------------------------ echo END OF PROCESSING echo ------------------------------------------------------------------ :: CLEANUP set NumDays= set DaysOld= set Comparison= GOTO ENDIT : :PROCESS! shift shift :: get difference in days between filedate and today. :: Note that /B parm (which is omitted) defaults to today's date. fdate /fdif /A%1 /IF /VDaysOld :: compare DaysOld to NumDays fdate /f#comp /A%DaysOld% /B%NumDays% /Vcomparison :: the following line will DISPLAY THE NAME AND AGE OF :: any file for which %DaysOld% is greater than %NumDays% :: -------------------------------------------------------------- if (%comparison%)==(GT) echo %1 is %DaysOld% days old. :: EXAMPLE (to activate this routine, remove the REM from column 1) :: the following line will COPY TO AN ARCHIVE SUBDIRECTORY :: any file for which %DaysOld% is greater than %NumDays% :: ----------------------------------------------- REM if (%comparison%)==(GT) COPY %1 C:\ARCHIVE\*.* :: EXAMPLE (to activate this routine, remove the REM from column 1) :: the following line will DELETE :: any file for which %DaysOld% is greater than %NumDays% :: ----------------------------------------------- REM if (%comparison%)==(GT) DEL %1 :: fall through to endit :endit =============================================================== COMMENTARY BEGIN =============================================================== This batch file uses a crude, but effective, technique for giving a batch file the ability to call subroutines. If you've never seen something like this before, it is sort of mind-blowing. Here's some commentary on the more important lines involved in the technique. =============================================================== if (%1)==(SUBROUTINE) goto %2 COMMENTARY: If the first parameter, %1, is "SUBROUTINE", then the batch file recognizes that it is being called for the purpose of executing one of its own subroutines. In such a case, it does a GOTO to the start of the requested subroutine. That is, it goes to the label whose name is in the second parameter. Explicitly specifying the name of the desired subroutine permits permits us to have multiple subroutines in the batch file, each with its own name. (As it happens, in this batch file we have only one subroutine, named "PROCESS!") If the first parameter is not "SUBROUTINE", then we fall through and begin executing the main routine of the batch file. In such a case, the first parameter (%1) may contain a number, indicating the number of days to use in determining which files to delete. Note that this technique will make the batch file malfunction if the user himself ever executes the batch file from the DOS command line with the word "SUBROUTINE" as the first parameter, the word "PROCESS!" as the second parameter, and a third parameter that is missing or not a valid filename. This is so unlikely, however, that it is reasonable to assume that it will never happen. =============================================================== for %%v in (*.*) do CALL %0 SUBROUTINE PROCESS! %%v COMMENTARY: In a batch file, %0 contains the name by which the batch file was invoked. We use this fact to allow a batch file to call itself, regardless of what name the user has given to it. The first parameter passed, when the batch file calls itself, is the string "SUBROUTINE". This string allows the batch file to recognize when it is being called for the purpose of executing one of its own subroutines. The second parameter is the name of the subroutine that we want to call: in this case, "PROCESS!". The third parameter is what we would normally think of as the first parameter to the subroutine. In this case, when the FOR statement is executed, and the substitution for %%v takes place, it will contain the name of the file to be processed. Note that we could, if we wished, pass additional parameters to the subroutine. Note also that we can control the files that we process. We do so via the filemask in the FOR statement. It we used, for example, "*.EXE", then we would process only executable files. =============================================================== GOTO ENDIT COMMENTARY: When the mainline of the batch file is finished executing, we goto the end of the batch file. We MUST do this GOTO in order to avoid falling through into, and starting to execute, the first of the batch file's subroutines. =============================================================== :PROCESS! shift shift COMMENTARY: Note that when the batch file is called as a subroutine, and the batch file goes to the PROCESS! label, the values of the parms are: %0 = [the name of the batch file] %1 = SUBROUTINE %2 = PROCESS! %3 = [name of the file to be processed] We shift all the parameters to the left twice, to move the parameter(s) into what we think of as the proper places for parameters to the subroutine. After the first SHIFT command: %0 = SUBROUTINE %1 = PROCESS! %2 = [name of the file to be processed] After the second SHIFT command: %0 = PROCESS! %1 = [name of the file to be processed] Now %1 contains what we think of as the proper parameter(s) to the subroutine. In this case, %1 contains the filename that we want the subroutine to process. At the end of every subroutine, there should be a GOTO ENDIT, which causes the batch file to go to its own end, and then end and return control to the statement in the program which called it. (This is, of course, the CALL statement embedded in the FOR statement.) We can optimize the batch file a little by omitting the "goto endit" at the end of the last subroutine. Instead, we simply allow the last subroutine to fall through to the end of the batch file. =============================================================== COMMENTARY END =============================================================== :42 Get date to tell PKZIP to compress files older than 30 days :====================================================================== PKZIP (a popular file-compression utility) can be used to compress and archive files that are older/younger than a given date. To run PKZIP on files that are, for example, older than 30 days, we need the date that was 30 days before today's date. To get it, we use Fdate to subtract 30 days from today's date, and put that date out in PKZIP's "American" format (MMDDYY). (Fdate also supports PKZIP's Japanese and European formats.) To compress all files that were created before a date 30 days ago: Fdate /Fsub /N30 /Ommddyy /VArchiveDate pkzip test.zip -T%ArchiveDate% For more information, see PKZIP's MANUAL.DOC file. :43 Loop through an array of environment variables :====================================================================== @echo off cls SET pct=%%% SET prefix=Address ECHO LOADING AN ARRAY SET subscript=1 SET %prefix%.%subscript%=Stephen Ferg SET subscript=2 SET %prefix%.%subscript%=5113 N. 8th Road SET subscript=3 SET %prefix%.%subscript%=Arlington, VA 22205 ECHO UNLOADING AND DISPLAYING THE ARRAY SET subscript=1 :LoopTop REM do while subscript less than/equal 3 if %subscript%==4 goto LoopEnd REM put value of subscripted variable into tempvar ECHO SET tempvar=%pct%%prefix%.%subscript%%pct%>JUNKTEMP.BAT CALL JUNKTEMP.BAT REM display value of subscripted variable ECHO %prefix%.%subscript% is: %tempvar% REM delete subscripted variable SET %prefix%.%subscript%= REM increment the loop variable Fdate /F#add /A%subscript% /B1 /Vsubscript goto LoopTop :LoopEnd SET pct= SET tempvar= SET prefix= SET subscript= DEL JUNKTEMP.BAT :44 Do something on the last day (or last Friday) of the month :================================================================== COMMENT We often need batch files that do some special task on the last day of the month: run a backup job, display a reminder message, etc. This example batch file, LASTDAY.BAT, simply displays a message -- you can modify it to do whatever it is that YOU want to do. If you plan to run LASTDAY.BAT at work, and you work Monday through Friday, then checking for the last day of the month would be a poor strategy -- after you leave work on a Friday, the last day of the month might occur on the following Saturday or Sunday. So I've included a check to see if the Friday is the last working day of the month. If you don't want that functionality, deleting the lines between the first and last occurrence of the string "EndCheck" will remove it. ======================================================================= @echo off REM --------------------------------------------------------------- REM check to see if today is the last day of the month REM --------------------------------------------------------------- REM get today's month fdate /ff /omm /vmmtoday REM get tomorrow's month fdate /fadd /n1 /omm /vmmtomorrow REM if tomorrow occurs in a different month, REM then today is the last day of this month if not (%mmtoday%)==(%mmtomorrow%) echo LAST DAY OF THE MONTH if not (%mmtoday%)==(%mmtomorrow%) goto EndCheck REM ------------------------------------------------------------- REM check to see if today is the last Friday of the month REM ------------------------------------------------------------- rem get today's day of the week, to see if it is Friday fdate /ff /odow3 /vdow3 if not (%dow3%)==(Fri) goto EndCheck REM today is Friday. Get next Monday's month fdate /fadd /n3 /omm /vmmMonday REM if next Monday occurs in a different month, REM then today is the last Friday of this month if not (%mmtoday%)==(%mmMonday%) echo LAST WORKING DAY OF THE MONTH :EndCheck REM cleanup set dow3= set mmtoday= set mmtomorrow= set mmMonday= :45 Get information about the month prior to the current month :================================================================== COMMENT When running a monthly backup job at the beginning of the month, one often needs to identify the previous month, or the last day of the previous month. Here's how to use Fdate to obtain that sort of information. Basically, we subtract one day from the first day of the current month, giving us the last day of the previous month. ======================================================================= @echo off cls : The simplest way to get information about last month is to subtract : 1 day from the first day of this month ... fdate /fsub /n1 /att-01-tttt /omm /p"Last month was.................: " fdate /fsub /n1 /att-01-tttt /occyy /p"Last month occurred in the year: " fdate /fsub /n1 /att-01-tttt /odd /p"The last day of last month was : " fdate /fsub /n1 /att-01-tttt /od1 /p"The last day of last month was : " :46 Show the last Monday (or any other weekday) in this month :================================================================== @echo off cls :: Use monthly arithmetic to get first day of next month fdate /fm /n1 /att-01-tttt /omm-dd-ccyy /v :: get the preceding Monday, i.e. the last Monday in this month fdate /fw /d2 /n-1 /x /a%fdate% :47 Show the last Monday in the month, for a series of months :================================================================== @echo off cls :: initialize constants set StartDate=01-01-1996 set MONTHS=15 echo Show the last Mondays in the month, echo for the %months% months starting %StartDate% echo ============================================================== set COUNT=1 :LOOPTOP :: compare COUNT to MONTHS, exit loop if COUNT exceeds MONTHS FDATE /F#comp /A%COUNT% /B%MONTHS% /vCOMP if (%COMP%)==(GT) goto ENDLOOP :: Use monthly arithmetic to get first day of next month FDATE /Fm /N%COUNT% /A%StartDate% /Omm-dd-ccyy /Vfdate :: get the preceding Monday (/D2) -- the last Monday in this month FDATE /Fw /D2 /N-1 /X /A%fdate% /P"%count% " :: increment COUNT FDATE /F#add /A%COUNT% /B1 /Vcount GOTO LOOPTOP :ENDLOOP echo. :endit set StartDate= set MONTHS= set COUNT= set COMP= set FDATE= :50 Represent a date in 3 bytes of "extended hex" notation :================================================================== rem produce today's date as 3 bytes fdate /ff /oxxx rem produce yesterday's date in xxx format fdate /fsub /N1 /oxxx :51 Represent a date in a short (4-byte) format (technique #1) :================================================================== COMMENT A common use of Fdate is to format today's date and use it to rename a file (typically a log file of some sort). You may wish to store the date information in as few characters as possible, in order to maximize the number of other characters in the filename that you can use to store other information. In this example, and the next one, I illustrate two ways to store a date in 4 bytes. The simplest way is to represent today's date as a 4-digit number. To do this, we first pick a base date: I'll use January 1, 1990. Then it is a simple matter to calculate the number of days between today and the base date: FDATE /Fdif /at /b01-01-1990 Starting in 1993, this will always generate a 4-digit number, and will continue to do so for 20 years, until approximately the year 2003. Dates before 1993 may produce 1-, 2-, or 3-digit numbers, and dates after 2003 will begin to produce 5-digit numbers. But this technique will work quite nicely for most ordinary purposes for the next 20 years. If you're still using DOS in the year 2003, then in 2003 you can switch to using January 1, 2000 as your base date and function quite nicely for the next 20 years after that. :52 Represent a date in a short (4-byte) format (technique #2) :================================================================== @echo off cls goto end-doc ------------------------------------------------------------------ This batch file shows how to use Fdate's #2XX function to obtain and represent today's date in 4 characters, YYMD, where: YY is the year (e.g. "93" for 1993) M is the month in extended hexadecimal (XX) notation D is the day-of-the-month in extended hexadecimal (XX) notation You can also use Fdate's "XXX" output format to represent dates between 1990 and 2024 in 3 bytes of extended hex notation. ------------------------------------------------------------------ :end-doc REM OBTAIN 1-CHARACTER REPRESENTATION FOR THE MONTH Fdate /ff /Omm /Vmm Fdate /f#2xx /A%mm% /Vmm echo XX representation of this month's number is %mm% REM OBTAIN 1-CHARACTER REPRESENTATION FOR THE DAY Fdate /ff /Odd /Vdd Fdate /f#2xx /A%dd% /Vdd echo XX representation of today's day of the month is %dd% REM CONCATENATE THEM TO THE 2-CHARACTER REPRESENTATION FOR THE YEAR Fdate /Ff /Oyy /S%mm%%dd% /Vdate echo XX representation of today's full date is %date% REM CLEANUP set mm= set dd= set date= :endit :53 Convert numbers to "extended hex" (XX) format :================================================================== @echo off cls SET decnum=0 :top if (%decnum%)==(37) goto endit fdate /f#2xx /A%decnum% /P"XX representation of %decnum% is " fdate /f#add /A%decnum% /b1 /Vdecnum goto top :endit :54 Customize Fdate for a language of your choice :================================================================== @echo off cls goto end-doc ------------------------------------------------------------------ You can use Fdate with a customized batch file to obtain the names of the days of the week and the months in a language of your choice. Or you could use it to obtain names in uppercase, or the first 5 characters of the names (rather than the first three), or some other customized formatting of your choice.) I've invented a language called Fergian, which has its own names for the days of the week, and the months. In the following examples, I invoke FERGIAN.BAT to make the translation. The text of FERGIAN.BAT, which does the real work here, is given in the next example. ------------------------------------------------------------------ :end-doc fdate /ff /omm /v call Fergian mm- result %Fdate% echo Month is %result% fdate /ff /omm /v call Fergian mm3 result %Fdate% echo Month3 is %result% fdate /ff /odow# /v call Fergian dw- result %Fdate% echo Day of week is %result% fdate /ff /odow# /v call Fergian dw3 result %Fdate% echo Day of week3 is %result% REM cleanup set Fdate= set result= :55 Fergian.BAT (used in the previous example) :================================================================== @echo off set %2= goto %1 goto end-doc -------------------------------------------------------------------- This batch file converts a month number, or day of the week number, to a name in the FERGIAN language. You can copy this batch file and customize it, to make it translate into some other language of your choice. This batch file expects the following parameters: %1 contains the type of number you want to convert: MM- if you want the entire name of the month MM3 if you want the first 3 letters of the name of the month DW- if you want the entire name of the day of the week DW3 if you want the first 3 letters of the name of the day of the week %2 contains the name of the environment variable that you want to use to hold the result %3 contains the number that you want to convert -------------------------------------------------------------------- :end-doc :MM- if (%3)==(01) set %2=Jaded if (%3)==(02) set %2=Febrile if (%3)==(03) set %2=Martial if (%3)==(04) set %2=Abigail if (%3)==(05) set %2=Maybelene if (%3)==(06) set %2=Junkaroo if (%3)==(07) set %2=Julia if (%3)==(08) set %2=Augmentation if (%3)==(09) set %2=Separation if (%3)==(10) set %2=Ostentation if (%3)==(11) set %2=Novelty if (%3)==(12) set %2=Decadence goto endit : :MM3 if (%3)==(01) set %2=Jad if (%3)==(02) set %2=Feb if (%3)==(03) set %2=Mar if (%3)==(04) set %2=Abi if (%3)==(05) set %2=May if (%3)==(06) set %2=Jun if (%3)==(07) set %2=Jul if (%3)==(08) set %2=Aug if (%3)==(09) set %2=Sep if (%3)==(10) set %2=Ost if (%3)==(11) set %2=Nov if (%3)==(12) set %2=Dec goto endit :DW- if (%3)==(1) set %2=SunDay if (%3)==(2) set %2=MoonDay if (%3)==(3) set %2=TwickasDay if (%3)==(4) set %2=WodensDay if (%3)==(5) set %2=ThorsDay if (%3)==(6) set %2=FreyasDay if (%3)==(7) set %2=SaturnDay goto endit :DW3 if (%3)==(1) set %2=Sun if (%3)==(2) set %2=Moo if (%3)==(3) set %2=Twi if (%3)==(4) set %2=Wod if (%3)==(5) set %2=Tho if (%3)==(6) set %2=Fre if (%3)==(7) set %2=Sat goto endit :endit :61 DO-ONCE: Run apps when booting for the first time of the day :=============================================================== COMMENT Put this code in AUTOEXEC.BAT. Note that this batch code requires DOS 3.3+, since it uses CALL. if not exist C:\LASTRUN.BAT goto RunNow rem call LASTRUN.BAT, which will set an environment variable, %LASTRUN%, rem that will contain the date when this batch file was last run. rem ------------------------------------------------------------------ call C:\LASTRUN.BAT rem compare the date in %LASTRUN% to today's date rem ------------------------------------------------------------------ Fdate /Fcomp /At /B%LastRun% /Vcomp : Today's date may be less than %LASTRUN% if you reset the system clock IF (%COMP%)==(LT) goto NoRun : If %LASTRUN% was the same as today's date, : then this batch file has already been run once today IF (%COMP%)==(EQ) goto NoRun : Daily processing hasn't been run today. Run it. : Here, you should put the batch-file body -- : the code to run the applications that you want to run once per day : : ------------------------------------------------------------------ : Save today's date in a new version of LastRun.BAT. Note that : this code will be executed only if daily processing runs to : completion without hanging the machine or aborting the batch file. : ------------------------------------------------------------------ Fdate /Ff /Omm-dd-ccyy /At /P"@set LastRun=">LastRun.BAT :NoRun set LastRun= set COMP= :62 Run specific software, depending on the day of the week :================================================================== COMMENT This is a very common use for Fdate. I use it to load an alarm-clock TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident, "memory resident", program) that beeps at me (at different times on different days of the week) to remind me that it is time to attend a meeting that is regularly scheduled for that day of the week. Note that stuff for a given day of the week will be executed every time you boot up on that day of the week. If you want stuff (e.g. a backup job) to be run only once (the first time you boot up) on a given day of the week, then: (1) copy the code from DO-ONCE (the previous example) into your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, then (2) copy this code into the body of the DO-ONCE code that you copied into AUTOEXEC.BAT in the last step. If you do that, then this code will be run only once per day, even if you boot up multiple times per day. Remember that if you are executing other batch files from a batch file, you should invoke them with a CALL statement: CALL batchfilename parm1 parm2 ... so control will return to the calling batch file when execution of the called batch file is complete. Note that the string comparison is case sensitive. ================================================================== :: get 3-character day-of-week name and put it in DOW e-var FDATE /ff /oDOW3 /vDOW if (%DOW%)==(Mon) alarmTSR.exe 10:30 Time for Monday staff meeting if (%DOW%)==(Fri) echo Running Friday backup. Please wait... if (%DOW%)==(Fri) CALL BACKUP C: if (%DOW%)==(Fri) CALL BACKUP D: set dow= :63 Run a program at a specified time later in the day :================================================================== COMMENT This batch file involves a lot of disk activity because DOS re-reads the batch file from disk every time it does a GOTO LOOPTOP. You can avoid all this disk activity by running the batch file from a RAM DISK. REM GET CURRENT ABSOLUTE MINUTE AND PUT IN ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE RUNTIME FDATE /Ff /At /Ominute# |STRINGS RunTime= ASK >NUL REM ADD 120 MINUTES (2 HOURS) TO ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE RUNTIME FDATE /F#add /A%RunTime% /B120 |STRINGS RunTime= ASK >NUL REM LOOP UNTIL NOWTIME HAS REACHED RUNTIME :LoopTop FDATE /Ff /At /Ominute# |STRINGS NowTime= ASK >NUL FDATE /F#comp /A%NowTime% /B%RunTime% |STRINGS TimeComp= ASK >NUL if (%TimeComp%)==(LT) goto loopTop :LoopEnd echo STARTING EXECUTION OF APPLICATION: [program name] :66 Change a filename to contain today's date in first 3 bytes :================================================================== FDATE /Ff /Oxxx /vXXX ren BACKUP.LOG %XXX%-BACK.LOG SET XXX= :67 Change a file's name to a name that contains today's date :================================================================== :: today's date (/At) in CCYYMMDD format into environment variable DATE1 FDATE /Ff /At /Occyymmdd /Vdate1 :: rename BACKUP.LOG to ccyymmdd.LOG (ex. 19950508.LOG on May 8, 1995) REN BACKUP.LOG %date1%.LOG SET DATE1= :68 Change a file's name to a name containing an absolute minute :=============================================================== COMMENT This is a way to keep a complete series of files, such as log files, that are all created with the same name on the same day. The only requirement is that they be created at least one minute apart. You won't need to be able to decipher the absolute minute to figure out when the file was created; you can simply do a DIR on the file and look at its date/time stamp. FDATE /FF /At /Ominute# /VJulMin REN online.log %JulMin%.log SET JulMin= :71 Extract the rightmost n characters of a string :=============================================================== rem extract the rightmost 6 characters of a string FDATE /Fsubstr /a-6 /Q"1994 Jun 03" ===> "Jun 03" :72 Left-pad a number with zeroes, or a string with spaces :=============================================================== :: pad a number (stored in environment variable) STRING :: to the left with zeroes, to make sure it is 4 bytes long set STRING=1 Fdate /FE /Q%STRING% /Jr04 /Vstring echo STRING is [%string%] :: pad a string (stored in environment variable) STRING :: to the left with spaces, to make sure it is 4 bytes long set STRING=aa Fdate /Fe /Q%STRING% /J"r 4" /Vstring echo STRING is [%string%] HOW FDATE THINKS ABOUT DATES ============================ FDATE'S BUSINESS VIEW OF THE CALENDAR ===================================== FDATE is intended for business applications, not historical ones. FDATE does not take into account historical changes in the calendar such as the ten days that were dropped from the British calendar when Britain moved from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in the 18th century, or the 11 days that were dropped from the Russian calendar when Russia made the same move in the early 20th century. As far as FDATE is concerned, the calendar has followed the same pattern, unchanged, since January 1, 0001. FDATE'S BASE DATE ================= Internally, Fdate's date manipulations are based on translating a calendar date into an "absolute" or "TRUE Julian" date: a date expressed as the number of days from some day in the distant past. FDATE's base date is January 1, 0001 (i.e. day 1 of month 1 of year 1) FDATE's absolute date for January 1, 0001 is 1. FDATE's absolute date for January 1, 1992 is 727198. FDATE'S LEAP YEAR ALGORITHM =========================== Every year evenly divisible by 4 IS a leap year EXCEPT THAT Every year evenly divisible by 100 IS NOT a leap year EXCEPT THAT Every year evenly divisible by 400 IS a leap year . Using this algorithm 1983 is not a leap year 1984 is a leap year 1900 is not a leap year 2000 is a leap year See "A Machine Algorithm for Processing Calendar Dates", by Henry F. Fliegel (Georgetown University Observatory) and Thomas C. Van Flandern (U.S. Naval Observatory) COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM, Volume 11, Number 10, October 1968 There is supposedly a new adjustment to the leapyear algorithm, which specifies the additional exception: EXCEPT THAT Every year evenly divisible by 4000 IS a leap year See "Bit By Bit" column, COMPUTER LANGUAGE, November 1989, p. 148. This adjustment is not part of FDATE's leapyear algorithm. Unless your application is working with dates 2,000 years in the future, the lack of this exception will be irrelevant for you. FDATE'S CENTURY-ASSUMPTION ALGORITHM ==================================== If an input date is supplied in a format in which the year is specified without a century -- that is, as YY rather than CCYY -- then Fdate does not automatically use the current century. Instead, * if YY is greater than 20, then FDATE assumes CC = 19 * if YY is less than or equal 20, then FDATE assumes CC = 20 Examples: 21 becomes 1921 ... 99 becomes 1999 00 becomes 2000 01 becomes 2001 ... 20 becomes 2020 but then (again) 21 becomes 1921 To put it simply, FDATE makes what would be a reasonable assumption about the century for someone operating in the 1990's: it looks back to 1921 and forward to 2020. If I, FDATE, and DOS are still alive in the year 2005 (which, given the introduction of Windows 95, seems unlikely) I'll probably update FDATE's century-assumption algorithm to shift it forward several decades. FDATE'S IMPLEMENTATION LIMITS ==================================== Internally, numbers in Fdate are stored in Turbo Pascal's LONGINT datatype, which means that Fdate can accept numbers up to 9 digits long. DISTRIBUTION ISSUES =================== USE, REGISTRATION, AND DISTRIBUTION OF FDATE ============================================ FDATE is freeware, or what is known as "zero-cost shareware". FDATE is not what is technically called "public domain" software because the author retains the copyright. FDATE can, however, be copied, used, and distributed freely as long as FDATE.EXE and its associated doc file (FDATE.TXT) and demonstration batch files and doc files (HOLIDAYS.BAT, HOLIFEDS.BAT, HOLIFEDS.TXT) are not altered and are distributed together. There is no requirement to register FDATE in any way. FDATE can be included in shareware packages as long as both FDATE and its related files are included in the shareware package. If you have received FDATE as part of some larger shareware package, please be aware that you may freely use, copy, and distribute FDATE without paying a fee for, or registering, the larger package. The author explicitly disavows any claim whatsoever about the correctness or functionality of FDATE, its documentation, and its demonstration batch files, and disclaims liability for anything and everything bad that might happen in connection with, before, during, or after using it. I have tried to make FDATE work right, but everybody makes mistakes, so you use FDATE at your own risk. I don't know if people will find FDATE useful, and I'd like to find out. If you find FDATE useful and use it on a regular basis, I'd appreciate it if you would drop me a short note via US mail or CompuServe, telling me about how you are using FDATE. If you need other input/output formats, please contact the author. TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR FDATE =============================================== Send me a message via CompuServe mail; I'll respond. When sending your message, please let me know what version of Fdate you're using. WHERE TO FIND THE MOST CURRENT VERSION OF FDATE =============================================== You will always be able to find the most recent version of FDATE on CompuServe. The filename will be FDATE.ZIP, and it will be available in the CIS:IBMSYS forum (library 1, the "DOS Utilities" library). If you have problems finding it, try using cross-library searching, looking for the filename FDATE.ZIP or the keyword FDATE. UPLOADING FDATE TO ELECTRONIC BULLETIN BOARDS =============================================== Feel free to post copies of FDATE.ZIP on any BBS that you wish, but please do not upload it to any CompuServe library. As long as I am the only one putting copies of FDATE onto CompuServe, we can keep confusion over versions to a minimum. I distribute all versions of FDATE in a files called FDATE.ZIP, rather than embedding information about the version in the file name. I think doing this helps newer versions of FDATE to force older versions out of circulation. To give a BBS user information about the version, I always identify the version of FDATE in the 1-line file description that most BBSs support. CONTENTS OF THE FDATE.ZIP DISTRIBUTION FILE =========================================== The current distribution package (FDATE.ZIP) contains the following: FDATE.EXE [the FDATE program] FDATE.TXT [this file, documentation for FDATE] FDATEBEG.TXT [FDATE beginners documentation] [demonstration batch files] HOLIDAYS.BAT HOLIFEDS.BAT and HOLIFEDS.TXT [documentation files for use in BBS distribution] FILE_ID.DIZ DESC.SDI RECENT FDATE REVISION HISTORY ============================= Letters appended to version numbers indicate modifications to the doc files, without any modification to the FDATE.EXE software. Asterisks (*) indicate most important changes in the new version. 7.0a Nov 14, 1992 Added #mod function Major reformatting of documentation to make it more user-friendly 7.1a Apr 15, 1993 Added German language support. Thanks for the request, and the necessary information, from Patrick Schmucki, via the Active-Net BBS in Rapperswil, Switzerland. 8.0 July, 1993 Added "V" (validate) and "m" (month addition/subtraction) functions Added math functions: #mult #div #idiv Added /T (time) parameter Added FORATIME.BAT example, which Walter Ledge (assistant sysop of CompuServe's CRFORUM) and I developed. A big thanks to Walt for his feedback and help. 8.1 July 27, 1993 BUG FIX An error-trapping routine that was added to version 7.9 contained a bug that caused Fdate's numeric math functions (#add, #dif, #mult, #div, #idiv, #mod, #comp, etc.) to return incorrect results. 8.2 August, 1993 Removed FILEDATE.BAT from the distribution .ZIP file. Corrected the Spanish and French "full" and "d1" output formats. Thanks for the information on Spanish and French date formats to Gene J. Raymond, of GJR Software Products. 8.3a Feb 24, 1994 * Added the following string-handling functions: get (get user input) getu (get uppercase user input) upper (uppercase a string) len (length of a string) substr (substring) * Added /F#2xx (convert number to extended hex format) function. Deleted SETXX.BAT, which has been made obsolete with the addition of this new function. Modified second example of storing a 4-digit date to use #2xx instead of SETXX.BAT. * Added output formats "ddmmccyy" and "ddmmyy" at the request of several users. * Added output format "xxx" after several requests for advice on how to represent a large range of dates in a minimum number of bytes (usually for constructing filenames from today's date). * At the request of several users, enhanced the "compare" functions (comp, tcomp, #comp) so they set distinctive errorlevels for their different results. See the table of contents ("COMPARE-FUNCTION ERRORLEVELS") and EXAMPLES. To discussion of /Fv parameter, added note about almost always redirecting output to NUL when using /Fv. Revised FORATIME.BAT example batch file to make error-correction a bit more robust and to add better documentation on how to use it. Added example batch files to use new functions, especially FORATIM2.BAT which uses new "get" function Removed FDATEX.BAT demonstration batch file from distribution package, to reduce its size. The examples in this DOC file should make the examples in FDATEX.BAT unnecessary 8.4a March 20, 1994 * Added GETK (get keypress) function * Added ability to use /V when running in a Windows DOS box, thanks to a Turbo Pascal routine from the Turbo Professional library provided by Kim Kokkonen of TurboPower Software. Fixed a bug in which the prompt string (/Q) for the GET and GETU functions was being written to redirectable output (StdOut). The prompt string is now written directly to the screen, and will not appear in FDATE's output when the output is redirected to a file. Removed ALARM.BAT, ALARM.DOC, TIC.BAT and TIC.DOC from distribution package. They were too esoteric to be generally helpful. Added FILE_ID.DIZ and DESC.SDI to distribution package. Corrected algorithm for Mardi Gras in HOLIDAYS.BAT. Modified HOLIDAYS.BAT and HOLIFEDS.BAT to make them more interactive, using FDATE's new abilities to get user input. * Started ZIPing FDATE.ZIP with PKZIP 2.04g rather than version 1.1 8.4b April 2, 1994 Revised example :08, to use /fgetK rather than /fgetU Fixed formatting of #dif function Reformatted examples to reduce number of printed pages Duplicate example :07 was renumbered FORATIME.BAT (original version) removed as no longer interesting Modified JDATE.BAT to use new /Fget function 8.4cSeptember 6, 1994 Revised HOLIDAYS.BAT so it would not go into an infinite loop if run on a system where FDATE cannot manipulate the environment, and to pad the year to the left with zeroes, so years before 1000 will be accepted. Added example showing how to left-pad a number with zeroes. Rewrote example showing how to time execution of a program. Updated my home mailing address after moving. Corrected information on how to make sure you have enough environment space in a Windows DOS box. Thanks for the feedback and on this issue from Ronny Richardson. Added WHATDAY.BAT (example :14). Thanks for the request from Cal Pryluck, Radio-Television-Film, Temple University, Philadelphia 8.5aSeptember 28, 1994 Added output date format "mmddyy" (PKZIP's "American" date format), and an example showing how to use Fdate to get a date for use with PKZIP for archiving files. Thanks for the tip on PKZIP's input formats from Dick Jensen. 8.6aOctober 27, 1994 Corrected a bug in output format T1: HOUR value was being prefixed by a leading zero if MINUTE value was less than 10. 8.7a October 27, 1994 Added output format TDOS, which mimics the format used in the DOS "time" command. Added an example using it to the "roll your own" date format example (:19) as example (a). Thanks for the request for this common time format from Roy Zider. 8.8aNovember 06, 1994 Changed error action in cases in which the prefix parm /P was specified. In case of an error, the first line generated will always be "ERROR". If prefix parm was specified, then a second line will be generated with the prefix followed by "ERROR". Thus, if output is being routed to a batch file, and the prefix is something like "@set fdate=", then that will continue to work. Removed the example of using /Fe to put equal-signs and redirection symbols into the environment. I doubt if anyone found this example useful. Added ability to break out of HELP using the ESC key *Added justify parm (/J) Re-wrote HOLIDAYS.BAT to illustrate uses for /J. 8.9a 1995 Feb 15 *Added "absolute month" output format (/Omonth#) Added example YMD_DIF.BAT, which uses new /Omonth# facility Added FDATEBEG.TXT to the distribution .ZIP file 9.0a 1995 Feb 20 prefixed "@" to the "echo ERROR ... " and "pause" that are generated when Fdate detects an error. This should make error messages a bit easier to decipher. 9.1a 1995 May 15 Corrected bug that gave runtime error when function was #mult and /A parm was 0. 9.1b1995 June 12 Corrected example of Japanese date format in this DOC file. Thanks to Christopher Clark for pointing out the typo. 9.1c1995 Oct 22 Added a usage example to the discussion of the "file" input format (/If). Thanks to Bob Stephan for the suggestion. 9.1d 1995 Dec 08 Added comments to example :67 (putting date into filename) and changed output format to ccyymmdd. Hopefully, these changes will make this popular example more useful and easier to understand. 9.2a 1996 Jan 28 * Added /X (exclude) parm to /Fw (weekday arithmetic function). Added appropriate documentation, and examples :46 and :47. Thanks to Richard Rogers for a real-life application that required this feature. 9.2b 1996 Feb 1 Rectified a minor documentation omission; I'd forgot to add /X to the overview list of FDATE parms. Expanded FDATEBEG.TXT by adding the overview of things you can do with FDATE. 9.3a 1996 Apr 19 Added output format mmddccyy. Added information on using Fdate with Windows NT. Added specific information on Garrett Wolman's FDATE. 9.4a 1996 Jun 10 Added input formats DAY# and MINUTE#. This should enable a person to use Fdate to produce an absolute date or minute (using the DAY# or MINUTE# output format), manipulate it as he wishes (possibly in ways not supported by Fdate), and then convert the result back into a more readable format. Specifically, this should allow a person to do "minute arithmetic" as well as "date arithmetic". Thanks to Kevin Jackson, of the New York State Executive Chamber, who reported the need to do time arithmetic. Added the MIN_MATH.BAT and TIME_SET.BAT examples. Added news about TurboPower's withdrawal of support for environment-manipulating routines to documentation of /V parm under Windows NT. 9.4b 1996 Jun 24 Corrected minor bug in TIME_SET.BAT example. 9.5a 1997 March 17 Added #random function Added HHMMSSCC and HH:MM:SS:CC output formats 9.6a 1997 April 22 Fixed design flaw, in which justification was being applied to the entire output string, including prefix string and suffix string. Now, justification is applied BEFORE prefix and suffix strings are added to output. This essentially broke the "ECHO" function /FE. So a /Q parm was added to the echo function that permits it to still be used with justification (the /J parm). Modified all of the /FE examples that us justification, to show them working with the /Q parm rather than with /P. Modified HOLIDAYS.BAT, which was affected by this change. Renamed all .DOC files to .TXT Added contact info for Garrett Wollman and PSL.