header image

Get-Date format

Posted by: | February 27, 2018 Comments Off on Get-Date format |

A common question revolves around Get-Date format. In other words how can you format the output of Get-Date.

Standard output is

PS> Get-Date

27 February 2018 16:02:13

 

You can use –DisplayHint to control what’s displayed

PS> Get-Date -DisplayHint Date

27 February 2018

PS> Get-Date -DisplayHint Time

16:03:09

PS> Get-Date -DisplayHint DateTime

27 February 2018 16:03:17

 

Which is fine if you just want the date or the time

You’ve also got some methods on the DateTime object that can help

PS> (Get-Date).ToShortDateString()
27/02/2018
PS> (Get-Date).ToShortTimeString()
16:05
PS> (Get-Date).ToLongDateString()
27 February 2018
PS> (Get-Date).ToLongTimeString()
16:05:38
PS> (Get-Date).ToFileTime()
131642211467063624
PS> (Get-Date).ToFileTimeUtc()
131642211545205423
PS> (Get-Date).ToUniversalTime()

27 February 2018 16:07:01

 

Universal Time is more properly known as Greenwich Mean Time

If you want a bit more control you can use the –Format parameter. A description of the format specifiers is available at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-GB/Library/system.globalization.datetimeformatinfo(VS.85).aspx

(Get-Date).GetDateTimeFormats()

will give a very long list of the possible formats. Unfortunately it just displays the results not the format specifier.

 

There are some preset formats – for example:

PS> Get-Date -Format g
27/02/2018 16:14
PS> Get-Date -Format r
Tue, 27 Feb 2018 16:14:58 GMT
PS> Get-Date -Format s
2018-02-27T16:15:03

 

Or you can customise the format

PS> Get-Date -Format “ddMMyyyyhhmmss”
27022018041748
PS> Get-Date -Format “dd/MM/yyyy hh:mm:ss”
27/02/2018 04:18:03
PS> Get-Date -Format “dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss”
27/02/2018 16:18:08

 

Read the article at the link for the full list of options. NOTE – the options ARE case sensitive

 

Alternatively, you could use the –Uformat parameter to use Unix formatting. This is explained in the NOTES section of the Get-Date help file.

Some examples

PS> Get-Date -UFormat “%d/%m/%Y %r”
27/02/2018 04:23:25 PM
PS> Get-Date -UFormat “%d/%m/%Y %R”
27/02/2018 16:23

 

Between the display hints, the methods, –Format and –UFormat you should be able to get the date into the format you need.

under: PowerShell

Comments are closed.

Categories