Question

I have a script that does a simple XCOPY routine for backing up all our corporate files:

@echo off
IF %time:~0,2% GTR 7 (
    IF %time:~0,2% LSS 21 (

    XCOPY "R:\Sage Src" "S:\lastdata" /D /Y /E /R /K /C /H /I >> S:\sageBackupLog-%date:~-4,4%-%date:~-7,2%-%date:~-10,2%-hour%time:~0,2%.txt

    XCOPY "R:\importantStuff" "V:\lastdata" /D /Y /E /R /K /C /H /I 
    EXIT /B 0
    )
)

But ever since wrapping it all in the two IF statements, it no longer outputs the hour.

I have tried set %hour%=%time:~0,2% but it doesn’t work, returning an invalid parameters error.

Answer 1

There are two main problems here.

First of all, change your set command into this: set hour=%time:~0,2% (hour without enclosing %-signs)

Next thing is, that times with a single digit hour value like 9:00 o’clock will be printed like:

" 9:00:00.00"

with a leading space in front of the first digit. This is the reason for your error message, as your file name might resolve to something like:

sageBackupLog-2012-09-11-hour 9.txt

This actually forms two parameters as the name is not enclosed with "

To overcome this and print a leading zero for these times, you can use a second set statement doing a string replacement, changing spaces to zeros:

set hour=%time:~0,2%
set hour=%hour: =0%

You can then safely use %hour% instead of %time:~0,2% in your script.

Hope that helps.