Writing time in a file in a for loop

Question

In windows 2008: I'm trying to zip and copy files to a backup server. I use command line/batch file, I log the result in a log file, I now want to log also the time for each file looped.

The backupZipCopy.bat batch file:

setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
echo starting at %date% %time%>>c:\backup\resuZip.log
d:
cd \myDirectoryToBackup
FOR %%i IN (*.nsf)  DO (
echo %date% %time%>>c:\backup\resuZip.log 
"C:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe"  -bd u "\\backupServer\myBackup\%%~ni.zip" "%%~fi">>c:\backup\resuZip.log
)

My problem: The time is the same for all the batch duration (the time when batch started when I expected the real time in each loop). I already specify setlocal enabledelayedexpansion which doesn't help (so do I need this or not?).

NB timethis won't solve my problem since I need time in each loop. NB2 I'm calling this batch from the window scheduler.

Answer 1

The problem is that in the line (the ( ) block is parsed as a single line), all %foo% variables are evaluated only once, before running the for loop.

The enabledelayedexpansion option does help. However, it doesn't change the parsing rules for the usual %foo% variable syntax. Instead, it introduces a new one – using ! as delimiters.

for %%i in (*.nsf) do (
    echo !date! !time!>> C:\backup\resuZip.log
)

Be very careful with this, however, as the delayed expansion happens after %foo% variables have been expanded. Therefore it will result in unexpected output if a % variable has exclamation marks in it. The cmd.exe parsing rules are outright painful at times.

I strongly recommend you use a different language for your script. PowerShell would be a good choice, considering it's part of most recent Windows releases and it has tools for managing various Windows Server components.