Resolved - Variable %START_DATE% Formating

[isle-gmbh]

Need the start date in this form: YYYYMMDD
%START_DATE:{YYYYMMDD}% has no effect.

The example from the documentation (Custom Scripting in BackupAssist \ Variables) doesn't work:
https://www.backupassist.com/education/resources/custom_scripting.html#tab4

[Stuart]

Hi there,

It's Stuart here from the BackupAssist team, thanks for posting on our forum.

The reason why it's not working is due to you using incorrect formatting (capital and lower case letters are important in defining a variable output correctly).
This is outlined within the Microsoft link just below the example you say doesn't work within the document you linked to:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8kb3ddd4(v=vs.110).aspx

As you'll see from the article above, there is no format specifier of DD or YYYY - they're dd and yyyy.

For the example you're wanting, the format is:

Code: Select all

%START_DATE:{yyyyMMdd}%

This will produce a folder named 20160422 when the date is 22nd April 2016 (the date of this post).
The output of the variable is also impacted by the time/date formats configured within Windows.

[isle-gmbh]

You right, it works. But you have to set it up blind, because you see the result not before the backup is running.
For the more simple variables you have a preview of the resulting file name. It would be nice to have this for all kinds of variables, too.

[Stuart]

Hi again,

I'm glad to hear that the issue is resolved.