Windows PowerShell command on Get-command Get-Date

NAME

Get-Date

SYNOPSIS

Gets the current date and time.

SYNTAX

Get-Date [[-Date] ] [-Day ] [-DisplayHint {Date | Time | DateTime}] [-Format ] [-Hour

] [-Millisecond ] [-Minute ] [-Month ] [-Second ] [-Year ]

[]

Get-Date [[-Date] ] [-Day ] [-DisplayHint {Date | Time | DateTime}] [-Hour ] [-Millisecond

] [-Minute ] [-Month ] [-Second ] [-UFormat ] [-Year ]

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DESCRIPTION

The Get-Date cmdlet gets a DateTime object that represents the current date or a date that you specify. It can

format the date and time in several Windows and UNIX formats. You can use Get-Date to generate a date or time

character string, and then send the string to other cmdlets or programs.

PARAMETERS

-Date

Specifies a date and time. By default, Get-Date gets the current system date and time.

Type the date in a format that is standard for the system locale, such as dd-MM-yyyy (German [Germany]) or

MM/dd/yyyy (English [United States]).

Required? false Position? 0 Default value None

Accept pipeline input? True (ByPropertyName, ByValue)

Accept wildcard characters? false

-Day

Specifies the day of the month that is displayed. Enter a value from 1 to 31. The default is the current day. If you specify a value that is greater than the number of days in the month, Windows PowerShell adds the

number of days to the month and displays the result. For instance, `Get-Date -Month 2 -Day 31` displays March

3, not February 31. Required? false Position? named Default value None Accept pipeline input? False Accept wildcard characters? false

-DisplayHint

Determines which elements of the date and time are displayed. The acceptable values for this parameter are:

- Date. Displays only the date. - Time. Displays only the time. - DateTime. Displays the date and time.

DateTime is the default. This parameter does not affect the DateTime object that Get-Date gets.

Required? false Position? named Default value None Accept pipeline input? False Accept wildcard characters? false

-Format

Displays the date and time in the Microsoft .NET Framework format indicated by the format specifier. Enter a format specifier. For a list of available format specifiers, see DateTimeFormatInfo Classhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/library/system.globalization.datetimeformatinfo.aspx (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/system.globalization.datetimeformatinfo.aspx) in MSDN. When you use the Format parameter, Windows PowerShell gets only the properties of the DateTime object that it needs to display the date in the format that you specify. As a result, some of the properties and methods of DateTime objects might not be available. Starting in Windows PowerShell 5.0, you can use the following additional formats as values for the Format parameter.

- FileDate. A file or path-friendly representation of the current date in local time. It is in the form of

yyyymmdd ( using 4 digits, 2 digits, and 2 digits). An example of results when you use this format is 20150302.

- FileDateUniversal. A file or path-friendly representation of the current date in universal time. It is in

the form of yyyymmdd + 'Z' (using 4 digits, 2 digits, and 2 digits). An example of results when you use this format is 20150302Z.

- FileDateTime. A file or path-friendly representation of the current date and time in local time, in 24-hour

format. It is in the form of yyyymmdd + 'T' + hhmmssmsms, where msms is a four-character representation of

milliseconds. An example of results when you use this format is 20150302T1240514987.

- FileDateTimeUniversal. A file or path-friendly representation of the current date and time in universal

time, in 24-hour format. It is in the form of yyyymmdd + 'T' + hhmmssmsms, where msms is a four-character

representation of milliseconds, + 'Z'. An example of results when you use this format is 20150302T0840539947Z. Required? false Position? named Default value None Accept pipeline input? False Accept wildcard characters? false

-Hour

Specifies the hour that is displayed. Enter a value from 1 to 23. The default is the current hour. Required? false Position? named Default value None Accept pipeline input? False Accept wildcard characters? false

-Millisecond

Specifies the milliseconds in the date. Enter a value from 0 to 999. The default is the current number of milliseconds. This parameter was introduced in Windows PowerShell 3.0. Required? false Position? named Default value None Accept pipeline input? False Accept wildcard characters? false

-Minute

Specifies the minute that is displayed. Enter a value from 1 to 59. The default value is the current minutes. Required? false Position? named Default value None Accept pipeline input? False Accept wildcard characters? false

-Month

Specifies the month that is displayed. Enter a value from 1 to 12. The default is the current month. Required? false Position? named Default value None Accept pipeline input? False Accept wildcard characters? false

-Second

Specifies the second that is displayed. Enter a value from 1 to 59. The default is the current second. Required? false Position? named Default value None Accept pipeline input? False Accept wildcard characters? false

-UFormat

Displays the date and time in UNIX format. For a list of the format specifiers, see the Notes section. When you use the UFormat parameter, Windows PowerShell gets only the properties of the DateTime object that it needs to display the date in the format that you specify. As a result, some of the properties and methods of DateTime objects might not be available. Required? false Position? named Default value None Accept pipeline input? False Accept wildcard characters? false

-Year

Specifies the year that is displayed. Enter a value from 1 to 9999. The default is the current year. Required? false Position? named Default value None Accept pipeline input? False Accept wildcard characters? false This cmdlet supports the common parameters: Verbose, Debug, ErrorAction, ErrorVariable, WarningAction, WarningVariable, OutBuffer, PipelineVariable, and OutVariable. For more information, see about_CommonParameters (https:/go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=113216).

INPUTS

None You cannot pipe input to this cmdlet.

OUTPUTS

System.DateTime or System.String

When you use the Format or UFormat parameters, Get-Date returns a string. Otherwise, it returns a DateTime

object.

NOTES

* By default, the date-time is displayed in long-date and long-time formats for the system locale.

When you pipe a date to cmdlets that expect string input, such as the Add-Content cmdlet, Windows PowerShell

converts the DateTime object to a string before adding it to the file. The default ToString() format is short

date and long time. To specify an alternate format, use the Format or UFormat parameter of Get-Date .

Uformat Values: The following are the values of the UFormat parameter. The format for the command is:

Get-Date -UFormat %

For example,

Get-Date -UFormat %d

Date-Time:

Date and time - full

(default) (Friday, June 16, 2006 10:31:27 AM)

c Date and time - abbreviated (Fri Jun 16 10:31:27 2006)

Date: D Date in mm/dd/yy format (06/14/06)

x Date in standard format for locale (09/12/07 for English-US)

Year: C Century (20 for 2006)

Y Year in 4-digit format (2006)

y Year in 2-digit format (06)

G Same as 'Y' g Same as 'y' Month:

b Month name - abbreviated (Jan)

B Month name - full (January)

h Same as 'b' m Month number (06) Week:

W Week of the year (00-52)

V Week of the year (01-53)

U Same as 'W' Day:

a Day of the week - abbreviated name (Mon)

A Day of the week - full name (Monday)

u Day of the week - number (Monday = 1)

d Day of the month - 2 digits (05)

e Day of the month - digit preceded by a space ( 5)

j Day of the year - (1-366)

w Same as 'u' Time: p AM or PM

r Time in 12-hour format (09:15:36 AM)

R Time in 24-hour format - no seconds (17:45)

T Time in 24 hour format (17:45:52) X Same as 'T'

Z Time zone offset from Universal Time Coordinate (UTC) (-07)

Hour:

H Hour in 24-hour format (17)

I Hour in 12 hour format (05) k Same as 'H'

l Same as 'I' (Upper-case I = Lower-case L)

Minutes & Seconds: M Minutes (35) S Seconds (05) s Seconds elapsed since January 1, 1970 00:00:00 (1150451174.95705) Special Characters: n newline character (\n) t Tab character (\t)

Example 1: Get the date and display it

PS C:\>Get-Date -DisplayHint Date

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 This command gets a DateTime object, but it displays only the date. It uses the DisplayHint parameter to indicate that only the date is to be displayed.

Example 2: Get the date and time in short format

PS C:\>Get-Date -Format g

6/13/2006 12:43 PM

This command gets the current date and time and formats it in short-date and short-time format. It uses the .NET

Framework g format specifier (General [short date and short time]) to specify the format.

Example 3: Get the date and time in UNIX format

PS C:\>Get-Date -UFormat "%Y / %m / %d / %A / %Z"

2006 / 06 / 13 / Tuesday / -07

This command gets the current date and time and formats it as specified by the command. In this case, the format

includes the full year (%Y), the two-digit numeric month (%m), the date (%d), the full day of the week (%A), and

the offset from UTC (Zulu).

Example 4: Get the day of the year for the current date

PS C:\>(Get-Date -Year 2000 -Month 12 -Day 31).DayOfYear

366 This command displays the day of the year for the current date. For example, December 31 is the 365th day of 2006, but it is the 366th day of 2000.

Example 5: Determine whether the date and time are adjusted for Daylight Saving Time

PS C:\>$A = Get-Date

PS C:\>$A.IsDaylightSavingTime()

True These commands tell you whether the current date and time are adjusted for daylight saving time in the current locale.

The first command creates a variable named $A, and then assigns the object retrieved by Get-Date to the $A

variable. Then, it uses the IsDaylightSavingTime method on the object in $A.

To see the properties and methods of the DateTime object, type:

`Get-Date | Get-Member`.

Example 6: Convert the current date and time to UTC time

PS C:\>$A = Get-Date

PS C:\>$A.ToUniversalTime()

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 8:09:19 PM These commands convert the current date and time to UTC time.

The first command creates a variable named $A, and then assigns the object retrieved by Get-Date to the $A

variable. Then, it uses the ToUniversalTime method on the object in $A.

Example 7: Convert a WMI DATETIME object to a .NET Framework DateTime object

PS C:\>$A = Get-WmiObject Win32_Bios -Computer Server01

PS C:\>$A | Format-List -Property Name, @{Label="BIOS Age";Expression={(Get-Date) -

$_.ConvertToDateTime($_.ReleaseDate)}}

Name : Default System BIOS

BIOS Age : 1345.17:31:07.1091047 Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) uses a different DATETIME object than the .NET Framework DateTime object

that Get-Date returns. To use DATETIME information from WMI in a command with DateTime information from Get-Date ,

you have to use the ConvertToDateTime method to convert WMI CIM_DATETIME objects to .NET Framework DateTime objects. The commands in this example display the name and age of the BIOS on a remote computer, Server01.

The first command uses the Get-WmiObject cmdlet to get an instance of the Win32_BIOS class on Server01 and then

stores it in the $A variable.

The second command uses the pipeline operator (|) to send the WMI object stored in $A to the Format-List cmdlet.

The Property parameter of Format-List specifies two properties to display in the list, Name and BIOS Age. The BIOS

Age property is specified in a hash table. The table includes the Label key, which specifies the name of the property, and the Expression key, which contains the expression that calculates the BIOS age. The expression uses the ConvertToDateTime method to convert each instance of ReleaseDate to a .NET Framework DateTime object. Then,

the value is subtracted from the value of the Get-Date cmdlet, which, without parameters, gets the current date.

Example 8: Get the long date and long time format for the current date and time

PS C:\>Get-Date

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 12:43:42 PM This command gets a DateTime object and displays the current date and time in the long date and long time formats

for the system locale, as though you typed `Get-Date -Format F`.

Example 9: Convert a DateTime object to a string and add it to a file

PS C:\>Get-Date

Tuesday, September 26, 2006 11:25:31 AM PS C:\>(Get-Date).ToString()

9/26/2006 11:25:31 AM PS C:\>Get-Date | Add-Content Test.txt

# Adds 9/26/2006 11:25:31 AM PS C:\>Get-Date -Format F | Add-Content Test.txt

# Adds Tuesday, September 26, 2006 11:25:31 AM

These commands demonstrate how to use Get-Date with Add-Content and other cmdlets that convert the DateTime object

that Get-Date generates to a string.

The first command shows that the default display from a Get-Date command is in long-date and long-time format.

The second command shows that the default display from the ToString() method of the DateTime object is in

short-date and short-time format.

The third command uses a pipeline operator to send the DateTime object to the Add-Content cmdlet, which adds the

content to the Test.txt file. Because Add-Content uses the ToString() method of the DateTime object, the date that

is added is in short-date and short-time format.

The fourth command uses the Format parameter of Get-Date to specify the format. When you use the Format or UFormat

parameters, Get-Date generates a string, not a DateTime object. Then, when you send the string to Add-Content , it

adds the string to the Test.txt file without changing it.

Example 10: Create a timestamp to use to name a directory

The first command uses the *Format* parameter with a value of o to generate a timestamp string.

PS C:\>Get-Date -Format o

2012-03-08T10:55:55.6083839-08:00

The second command prepares the timestamp to be used in a directory name. The command replaces the colon

characters (:) in the string with dots (.) and saves the result in the $TimeStamp variable. Replacing the colons

prevents the characters that precede each colon from being interpreted as a drive name.

PS C:\>$TimeStamp = Get-Date -Format o | foreach {$_ -replace ":", "."}

The third command uses the Mkdir function to create a directory with the name in the $TimeStamp variable.

PS C:\>mkdir C:\ps-test\$TimeStamp

Directory: C:\ps-test

Mode LastWriteTime Length Name

---- ------------- ------ ----

d---- 3/8/2012 11:01 AM 2012-03-08T11.00.24.4192623-08.00

This example shows how to use the Get-Date cmdlet to create a timestamp and how to use the timestamp in or as part

of a directory name.