How do I get current date/time on the Windows command line in a suitable format for usage in a file/folder name?

Question

Update: Now that it's 2016 I'd use PowerShell for this unless there's a really compelling backwards-compatible reason for it, particularly because of the regional settings issue with using `date`. See @npocmaka's https://stackoverflow.com/a/19799236/8479 What's a Windows command line statement(s) I can use to get the current datetime in a format that I can put into a filename? I want to have a .bat file that zips up a directory into an archive with the current date and time as part of the name, for example, `Code_2008-10-14_2257.zip`. Is there any easy way I can do this, independent of the regional settings of the machine? I don't really mind about the date format, ideally it'd be yyyy-mm-dd, but anything simple is fine. So far I've got this, which on my machine gives me `Tue_10_14_2008_230050_91`: ``` rem Get the datetime in a format that can go in a filename. set _my_datetime=%date%_%time% set _my_datetime=%_my_datetime: =_% set _my_datetime=%_my_datetime::=% set _my_datetime=%_my_d…

Accepted Answer

See Windows Batch File (.bat) to get current date in MMDDYYYY format:

```
@echo off
For /f "tokens=2-4 delims=/ " %%a in ('date /t') do (set mydate=%%c-%%a-%%b)
For /f "tokens=1-2 delims=/:" %%a in ('time /t') do (set mytime=%%a%%b)
echo %mydate%_%mytime%
```

If you prefer the time in 24 hour/military format, you can replace the second FOR line with this:

```
For /f "tokens=1-2 delims=/:" %%a in ("%TIME%") do (set mytime=%%a%%b)
```

C:> .\date.bat 2008-10-14_0642

If you want the date independently of the region day/month order, you can use "WMIC os GET LocalDateTime" as a source, since it's in ISO order:

```
@echo off
for /F "usebackq tokens=1,2 delims==" %%i in (`wmic os get LocalDateTime /VALUE 2^>NUL`) do if '.%%i.'=='.LocalDateTime.' set ldt=%%j
set ldt=%ldt:~0,4%-%ldt:~4,2%-%ldt:~6,2% %ldt:~8,2%:%ldt:~10,2%:%ldt:~12,6%
echo Local date is [%ldt%]
```

C:>test.cmd Local date is [2012-06-19 10:23:47.048]

How do I get current date/time on the Windows command line in a suitable format for usage in a file/folder name?

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