Writing Python date to bat file variable

Question

There's tons of half-working examples of how to get the date using batch file syntax, but they are usually overly verbose or difficult to understand. Since I can guarantee that the machine will be running Python, I was hoping to leverage Python to get the date in a nice user-friendly format and write the output to a bat file variable.

This is my attempt:

FOR /F "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %%F IN (`python -c "import datetime
datetime.datetime.now().replace(microsecond=0).isoformat()"`) DO (
SET var=%%F
)
ECHO %var%

Unfortunately this does not work. I get this error:

.replace(microsecond was unexpected at this time.

i'm not sure if I'm missing some kind of formatting, but searches regarding this error yield nothing illuminating. Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

Try this (though you hadn't specified the python version):

FOR /F "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %%F IN (
    `python -c "import datetime; print datetime.datetime.now().replace(microsecond=0).isoformat();"`
) DO (
    SET var=%%F
)

echo %var%

you need the print function (otherwise there will be no output to be handled by the batch file)

For more complicated code I would recommend you to use the "chimera" technique by siberia-man which allows you to put both python and batch code in one file with new lines and etc. :

0<0# : ^
''' 
@echo off

for /f "tokens=* delims=" %%a in ('python "%~f0" %*') do (
    set "var=%%a"
)
echo %var%
exit /b 0

:::: PYTHON CODE GOES HERE  :::::
'''

import datetime;

print datetime.datetime.now().replace(microsecond=0).isoformat();