Split

Question

Is there a way to split the %date% in a batch file (say, in 3 environment variables), but regardless of Regional Settings? Today\'s date would be 3/13/201

Answer 1

I've reworked sashoalm's version to take care of the suppressed-leading-zero situation:

@Echo OFF
SETLOCAL
If "%Date%A" LSS "A" (Set _NumTok=1-3) Else (Set _NumTok=2-4)
:: Default Delimiter of TAB and Space are used
For /F "TOKENS=2*" %%A In ('REG QUERY "HKCU\Control Panel\International" /v iDate') Do Set _iDate=%%B
For /F "TOKENS=2*" %%A In ('REG QUERY "HKCU\Control Panel\International" /v sDate') Do Set _sDate=%%B
IF %_iDate%==0 For /F "TOKENS=%_NumTok% DELIMS=%_sdate% " %%F In ("%Date%") Do CALL :procdate %%H %%F %%G
IF %_iDate%==1 For /F "TOKENS=%_NumTok% DELIMS=%_sdate% " %%F In ("%Date%") Do CALL :procdate %%H %%G %%F
IF %_iDate%==2 For /F "TOKENS=%_NumTok% DELIMS=%_sdate% " %%F In ("%Date%") Do CALL :procdate %%F %%G %%H
endlocal&SET YYYYMMDD=%YYYYMMDD%
GOTO :eof

::
:: Date elements are supplied in Y,M,D order but may have a leading zero
::
:procdate
:: if single-digit day then 1%3 will be <100 else 2-digit
IF 1%3 LSS 100 (SET YYYYMMDD=0%3) ELSE (SET YYYYMMDD=%3)
:: if single-digit month then 1%2 will be <100 else 2-digit
IF 1%2 LSS 100 (SET YYYYMMDD=0%2%YYYYMMDD%) ELSE (SET YYYYMMDD=%2%YYYYMMDD%)
:: Similarly for the year - I've never seen a single-digit year
IF 1%1 LSS 100 (SET YYYYMMDD=20%YYYYMMDD%) ELSE (SET YYYYMMDD=%1%YYYYMMDD%)
GOTO :eof

returning YYYYMMDD - substring at your will.

Interestingly, inserting after SETLOCAL

IF NOT "%1"=="" set date=%1

will allow any date in the local sequence (without the dayname) to be decoded to YYYYMMDD (but be careful that 19xx dates provided with the yy form will appear as 20xx - easily compensated-for if you find it necessary)