Script to improve date and time logging

Script to improve date and time logging

This tip was submitted to the searchWin2000 Tip Exchange by member Bob Daniel. Let other users know how useful it is by rating the tip below.

Many ad hoc scripts benefit from logging events with date and time stamping, but Windows provides no flexible way to control inserting the date and time into log files. This script parses the output of 'date' and 'time' and inserts the various values into environment variables that begin with DT_, making it easy to call from within another script for logging.

The script sets end of month (%DT_EOM%) and leap year (%DT_LEAP%) as binary values (0 is no, 1 is yes). It was originally written under NT4 to run NTBACKUP under at. It works on Win2000 and should work on XP/.NET.

Sample use:

dosomething.cmd:

@echo off
setlocal
set LOGFILE=%TEMP%dosomething.log
:start 
  call getdt
  echo %DT_YEAR%:%DT_MONTH%:%DT_DOM%:%DT_HOUR%:%DT_MIN%:%DT_SEC% started
doing something > "%LOGFILE%"
  rem // do stuff
  call getdt 
  echo %DT_YEAR%:%DT_MONTH%:%DT_DOM%:%DT_HOUR%:%DT_MIN%:%DT_SEC% finished
doing something > "%LOGFILE%"
:cleanup
  endlocal
This script produces a log file, starting each line with easily sortable date and time, example:
2002:03:05:01:05:03.46 started doing something
2002:03:05:03:40:58.12 finished doing something
Splitting off the fractional seconds is left as an exercise for the reader ;o)
		Code: @if .%ECHO%. == .. echo off
	rem //
	rem

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 //  GETDT.CMD
	rem //  exports output of date and time into environment variables
	rem //	variable list created by this script
for %%a in (
	DT_MIN
	DT_HOUR
	DT_SEC
	DT_MONTH
	DT_YEAR
	DT_DOW
	DT_DOM
	DT_EOM
	DT_LEAP
) do set %%a=

	rem //
	rem //	split the output of 'date'
	rem //	sample output:
	rem //		The current date is: Sat 08/12/2000 
for /f "tokens=5-6" %%a in ('echo.^|date^|find "current"') do ( 
	set DT_DOW=%%a
	for /f "tokens=1-3 delims=/" %%c in ('echo %%b') do (
		set DT_MONTH=%%c
		set DT_DOM=%%d
		set DT_YEAR=%%e
	)
)

	rem //
	rem //   because 'date' and 'time' are parsed 
	rem //   in separate operations,
	rem //   times within sub-seconds of midnight
	rem //   could be recorded on the previous day
	rem //

	rem //
	rem //	split the output of 'time'
	rem //	sample output:
	rem //		The current time is: 15:44:10.03
for /f "tokens=5" %%a in ('echo.^|time^|find "current"') do (
	for /f "tokens=1-3 delims=:" %%c in ('echo %%a') do (
		set DT_HOUR=%%c
		set DT_MIN=%%d
		set DT_SEC=%%e
	)
)

	rem //
	rem // calculate leap year
	rem // DT_LEAP=1 means we're in a leap year
	rem // DT_LEAP=0 means not in a leap year
:leap
set /a DT_LEAP=%DT_YEAR% %% 400
if "%DT_LEAP%" == "0" (
	set DT_LEAP=1
	goto :eom
)
set /a DT_LEAP=%DT_YEAR% %% 100
if "%DT_LEAP%" == "0" (
	set DT_LEAP=0
	goto :eom
)
set /a DT_LEAP=%DT_YEAR% %% 4
if "%DT_LEAP%" == "0" (
	set DT_LEAP=1
	goto :eom
) else ( 
	set DT_LEAP=0
)


:eom
set DT_EOM=0
if "%DT_DOM%" == "28" if "%DT_MONTH%" == "02" if "%DT_LEAP%" == "0" set DT_EOM=1
if "%DT_DOM%" == "29" if "%DT_MONTH%" == "02" set DT_EOM=1
if "%DT_DOM%" == "30" if "%DT_MONTH%" == "04" set DT_EOM=1
if "%DT_DOM%" == "30" if "%DT_MONTH%" == "06" set DT_EOM=1
if "%DT_DOM%" == "30" if "%DT_MONTH%" == "09" set DT_EOM=1
if "%DT_DOM%" == "30" if "%DT_MONTH%" == "11" set DT_EOM=1
if "%DT_DOM%" == "31" set DT_EOM=1


 






This was first published in March 2002

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