how to get yesterday's date in a batch file

Question

I know how to get today's date in Windows 7. here is the command that I am using:

%DATE:~6,4%%DATE:~3,2%%DATE:~0,2%

But I want to get yesterday, I do not know how.

Answer 1

If you're limited to just cmd.exe, then the other solutions, despite their size, are probably as good as you'll get. However, modern Windows (such as your Win7) ships with quite a few other tools which can do the job far easier.

Just create a VBScript yester.vbs script as follows:

d = date() - 1
wscript.echo year(d) * 10000 + month(d) * 100 + day(d)

Then you can call it from your cmd script with:

for /f %%a in ('cscript //nologo yester.vbs') do set yesterday=%%a

and the yesterday variable will be created in the form yyyymmdd for you to manipulate however you desire.

Answer 2

Here's a solution that creates the earlierday.vbs file on the fly, uses it and deletes it afterwards.

It stores the result in the NewDate variable

This example calculates 1 day ago, but can easily calculate a date further back by changing the value of the Offset variable.

@echo off
set Offset=1

echo d = date() - WScript.Arguments.Item(0) > earlierday.vbs
echo wscript.echo year(d) * 10000 + month(d) * 100 + day(d) >> earlierday.vbs

for /f %%a in ('cscript //nologo earlierday.vbs %Offset%') do set NewDate=%%a

del earlierday.vbs    
echo %NewDate%
pause

You could refine this slightly by using %temp%\earlierday.vbs to create the file in the user's temp folder.

Credits to paxdiablo as this is a simple tweak on his earlier post.

EDIT: Here's something with a loop, close to what I actually need it to do. This will take 14 days off today's date and return that date. Then it will keep going back 7 days at a time until it gets to 35 days day ago.

@echo off
SETLOCAL EnableDelayedExpansion

set BackDaysFrom=14
Set BackDaysTo=35
Set BackDaysStep=7

echo d = date() - WScript.Arguments.Item(0) > earlierday.vbs
echo wscript.echo year(d) * 10000 + month(d) * 100 + day(d) >> earlierday.vbs

for /L %%i in (%BackDaysFrom%, %BackDaysStep%, %BackDaysTo%) do (
    for /f %%a in ('cscript //nologo earlierday.vbs %%i') do set NewDate=%%a
    echo !NewDate!
)

del earlierday.vbs    

pause