Question

I am writing a batch script (cmd) in which I get the date of the changeset in RFC3339 format:

FOR /F "usebackq delims=" %%G IN ^
  (`hg log -r . --cwd "%~dp0" --template "{date|rfc3339date}"`) ^
  do SET hg_changeset_date_rfc3339=%%G
echo %hg_changeset_date_rfc3339%       <------ writes "2009-08-18T13:00:13+02:00"

Is there a simple and locale-independent way to get the current date in the same format, either with cmd builtins or with an hg command? I would not like to rely on %DATE% because it is locale dependent.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can use wmic command to get the current Date and time without getting affected by regional settings.

@echo off
SETLOCAL EnableDelayedExpansion


for /f "skip=1 tokens=1-6 delims= " %%a in ('wmic path Win32_LocalTime Get Day^,Hour^,Minute^,Month^,Second^,Year /Format:table') do (
    IF NOT "%%~f"=="" (
        set /a FormattedDate=10000 * %%f + 100 * %%d + %%a
        set FormattedDate=!FormattedDate:~0,4!-!FormattedDate:~-4,2!-!FormattedDate:~-2,2!
        set /a FormattedTime=%%b * 10000 + %%c * 100 + %%e
        set FormattedTime=!FormattedTime:~0,2!:!FormattedTime:~-4,2!:!FormattedTime:~-2,2!
    )
)

echo !FormattedDate!T!FormattedTime!Z <--Assuming UTC timezone is used
PAUSE

Here is the output after executing the script:

C:\>dateTime.bat
2013-01-25T22:11:40Z
Press any key to continue...

Hope it helps 🙂