How to define current system date in post build event

Question

I want to copy .dlls into a target directory of format "test\Project_yyyy.mm.dd" Where yyyy - cuurent year, mm - current month, dd - current date. When I give the below command in my post build event, I am getting an error.

xcopy /Y "$(TargetDir)*.*" test\Project_$(Year:yyyy).$(Month).$(DayOfMonth)

I could not find any macro which define current date. Can someone please help me on this.

I have reffered to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/669zx6zc.aspx where in I got some useful information. But I want this to be working even if I deploy it in a build server — Sriks, Aug 25 '14 at 11:53

score 14 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 25 '14 at 15:15

You can use MSBuild Property Functions to call some of the .Net API. You can use System.DateTime.Now to obtain current time, then fetch year/month/day as properties of this object.

Here is a code that does this:

<Project ToolsVersion="12.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <CurrentYear>$([System.DateTime]::Now.Year)</CurrentYear>
    <CurrentMonth>$([System.DateTime]::Now.Month)</CurrentMonth>
    <CurrentDay>$([System.DateTime]::Now.Day)</CurrentDay>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <Target Name="Print">
    <Message Text="Year: $(CurrentYear)" />
    <Message Text="Month: $(CurrentMonth)" />
    <Message Text="Day: $(CurrentDay)" />
  </Target>
</Project>

Thank you, this helped me. I was able to call Now.ToString("your_format") for more complicated formats. — Zach Mierzejewski, Aug 12 '19 at 21:06

How to define current system date in post build event

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