windows - 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.