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Getting the current date (DEBUG solution)
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To get the date into variables without dependency on locale
the simplest solution is to use a small machine code program
that can get the date directly from DOS. DOS provides services
that return the date in a standard form, and in fact the
form it provides this data in (BCD) is trivial to convert
into text.
Here is the source code for the program;
2274:0180 BF0701 MOV DI,0107
2274:0183 B404 MOV AH,04
2274:0185 CD1A INT 1A
2274:0187 E80200 CALL 018C
2274:018A 89CA MOV DX,CX
2274:018C E80000 CALL 018F
2274:018F 86D6 XCHG DL,DH
2274:0191 88D0 MOV AL,DL
2274:0193 D410 AAM 10
2274:0195 0D3030 OR AX,3030
2274:0198 86C4 XCHG AL,AH
2274:019A AB STOSW
2274:019B 47 INC DI
2274:019C C3 RET
I will add a walk through/description of how it works to
this page in time, at the moment this page exists to
present the subroutine and also so that one may compare
this solution with the pure batch solution given in the
article entitled "Getting the current date (reverse engineering
system date format)".
For now, there is a description of the %F%/%.% recursion
mechanism (that you need to set up in order to use the
subroutine in your programs) in the pure batch solution
article.
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The complete subroutine
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::************************************************************
::* GETDATE- GET SYSTEM DATE *
::* Entry: (No parameters required) *
::* Exit: %YH%=century %YL%=year %MM%=month %DD%=day*
::* Returned variables are 2 digits long *
::* Last Modified: 16/11/00 *
::* Compatibility: DOS 5+ (Tested: DOS 7) *
::* Notes: + Requires %F%/%.% recursion mechanism to be *
::* set up (see documentation) *
::************************************************************
:GETDATE
ECHO E180 BF 07 01 B4 04 CD 1A E8 02 00 89 CA E8 00 00 86>$
ECHO E190 D6 88 D0 D4 10 0D 30 30 86 C4 AB 47 C3>>$
FOR %%_ IN (RIP 180 G W Q) DO ECHO %%_>>$
ECHO SET %%1=XX XX XX XX >$.BAT
DEBUG $.BAT<$>NUL
CALL $.BAT _
SET .=GOTO:GDLOP0
%F% %_% MM DD YH YL
:GDLOP0
SET %5=%1
SHIFT
IF NOT !%5==! GOTO GDLOP0
SET _=
FOR %%_ IN ($ $.BAT) DO DEL %%_
%RET%
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A working example
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Invoke this batch program with no parameters;
PROGNAME
When it returns type SET to see that the variables
%YH%, %YL%, %MM%, %DD% are set with the current system
date.
The GETDATE subroutine has been used in this program
but has been "integrated" into it to make it more compact.
Notice how this program is functionally equivalent to the
one documented in "Getting the current date (reverse engineering
system date format)" but only one quarter of the size; a little
machine code often goes a long way!
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@ECHO OFF
%.%
ECHO E180 BF 07 01 B4 04 CD 1A E8 02 00 89 CA E8 00 00 86>$
ECHO E190 D6 88 D0 D4 10 0D 30 30 86 C4 AB 47 C3>>$
FOR %%_ IN (RIP 180 G W Q) DO ECHO %%_>>$
ECHO SET %%1=XX XX XX XX >$.BAT
DEBUG $.BAT<$>NUL
CALL $.BAT _
SET .=GOTO:GDLOP0
%0 %_% MM DD YH YL
:GDLOP0
SET %5=%1
SHIFT
IF NOT !%5==! GOTO GDLOP0
FOR %%_ IN (. _) DO SET %%_=
FOR %%_ IN ($ $.BAT) DO DEL %%_
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