"simonc" <simonc@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:46F83B7E-DDE0-4A81-A0AF-A2C2790C3FAF@microsoft.com...
> This is a batch programming issue, so I'm not sure if this is the right
> newsgroup. If not, maybe someone could suggest a better one.
>
> In a batch file which runs a backup I want the last line to rename the log
> file
>
> name_of_backup_job.txt to
>
> name_of_backup_job_today's date.txt with the date in YMD format so that
> files will sort into order properly in a directory listing.
>
> How do I extract the date into a variable, and how can I get it into YMD
> format?
>
> Grateful for advice.

I suspect you don't mean YMD format but perhaps YYYYMMDD.
You can do it like this:

@echo off
set D=%date:~6,4%%date:~0,2%%date:~3,2%
echo ren name_of_backup_job.txt name_of_backup_job_%D%.txt

Remove the "echo" word to activate the batch file.
Depending on your time zone and data format, you
may have to tune the numbers in the second line.