Formatting Date and Time Values

Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Scripting Guide

By default, VBScript displays the output of the Now, Date, and Time functions using the same date-time settings used by the operating system. For computers running the American English version of Windows, output will look similar to that shown in Table 2.10.

Table 2.10 Default Date-Time Output

However, you are not limited to these default formats. Instead, VBScript includes several constants (shown in Table 2.11) that can be used along with the FormatDateTime function to display date-time values in alternate ways.

Table 2.11 FormatDateTime Settings

The following script displays the current date and time using each of the date-formatting constants:

CurrentDate = Now
Wscript.Echo "General date: " & FormatDateTime(CurrentDate, vbGeneralDate)
Wscript.Echo "Long date: " & FormatDateTime(CurrentDate, vbLongDate)
Wscript.Echo "Short date: " & FormatDateTime(CurrentDate, vbShortDate)
Wscript.Echo "Long time: " & FormatDateTime(CurrentDate, vbLongTime)
Wscript.Echo "Short time: " & FormatDateTime(CurrentDate, vbShortTime)

When the preceding script runs under CScript, the following output appears in the command window:

General date: 1/31/2002 3:29:37 PM
Long date: Thursday, January 31, 2002
Short date: 1/31/2002
Long time: 3:29:37 PM
Short time: 15:29

Although these are the only date-time formats predefined in VBScript, you can use the various date and time functions to create your own formats. For example, the following lines of code display the date using just the month and year (8/2002):

Wscript.Echo Month(Now) & "/" & Year(Now)

The WeekdayDay and Month functions allow you to retrieve just the day of the week or just the month from a specified date. When you use these functions, the data is returned as an integer. These values are summarized in Table 2.12.

Table 2.12 Weekday and Month Return Values

Both WeekdayName and MonthName require you to first use the Day or Month function to retrieve the integer value for the day or the month. You cannot use either WeekdayName or MonthName directly with a date. For example, this code will fail because the function cannot determine the integer value to use for the month:

Wscript.Echo MonthName("9/19/2002")

To determine MonthName, you must first use the Month function:

MonthValue = Month("9/19/2002")
Wscript.Echo MonthName(MonthValue)

Alternatively, you can nest the two functions in a single line of code:

Wscript.Echo MonthName(Month("9/19/2002"))

The WeekdayName and MonthName functions are described in more detail in Table 2.13.

Table 2.13 Date Formatting Functions

Wscript.Echo WeekDayName(Day("9/1/2002"))

Wscript.Echo WeekDayName(Day("9/1/2002") True) 

Wscript.Echo MonthName(Month("9/1/2002"))

Wscript.Echo MonthName(Month("9/1/2002") , True)