This is the built-in help made by Microsoft for the command 'Get-Date', in PowerShell version 3 - as retrieved from
Windows version 'Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Standard' PowerShell help files on 2016-06-23.
For PowerShell version 3 and up, where you have Update-Help, this command was run just before creating the web pages from the help files.
Gets the current date and time.
Get-Date [[-Date] <DateTime>] [-Day <Int32>] [-DisplayHint <DisplayHintType>] [-Format <String>] [-Hour <Int32>] [-Millisecond <Int32>]
[-Minute <Int32>] [-Month <Int32>] [-Second <Int32>] [-Year <Int32>] [<CommonParameters>]
Get-Date [[-Date] <DateTime>] [-Day <Int32>] [-DisplayHint <DisplayHintType>] [-Hour <Int32>] [-Millisecond <Int32>] [-Minute <Int32>] [-Month
<Int32>] [-Second <Int32>] [-UFormat <String>] [-Year <Int32>] [<CommonParameters>]
The Get-Date cmdlet gets a DateTime object that represents the current date or a date that you specify. It can format the date and time in
several Windows and UNIX formats. You can use Get-Date to generate a date or time character string, and then send the string to other cmdlets
or programs.
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Online Version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=113313
New-TimeSpan
Set-Date
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-------------------------- EXAMPLE 1 --------------------------
PS C:\>Get-Date -DisplayHint Date
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
This command gets a DateTime object, but it displays only the date. It uses the DisplayHint parameter to indicate that only the date is to be
displayed.
-------------------------- EXAMPLE 2 --------------------------
PS C:\>Get-Date -Format g
6/13/2006 12:43 PM
This command gets the current date and time and formats it in short-date and short-time format. It uses the .NET Framework "g" format
specifier (General [short date and short time]) to specify the format.
-------------------------- EXAMPLE 3 --------------------------
PS C:\>Get-Date -UFormat "%Y / %m / %d / %A / %Z"
2006 / 06 / 13 / Tuesday / -07
This command gets the current date and time and formats it as specified by the command. In this case, the format includes the full year (%Y),
the two-digit numeric month (%m), the date (%d), the full day of the week (%A), and the offset from UTC ("Zulu").
-------------------------- EXAMPLE 4 --------------------------
PS C:\>(Get-Date -Year 2000 -Month 12 -Day 31).DayOfYear
366
This command displays the day of the year for the current date. For example, December 31 is the 365th day of 2006, but it is the 366th day of
2000.
-------------------------- EXAMPLE 5 --------------------------
PS C:\>$a = Get-Date
PS C:\>$a.IsDaylightSavingTime()
True
These commands tell you whether the current date and time are adjusted for daylight savings time in the current locale.
The first command creates a variable named $a and then assigns the object retrieved by Get-Date to the $a variable. Then, it uses the
IsDaylightSavingTime method on the object in $a.
To see the properties and methods of the DateTime object, type:
"Get-Date | get-member".
-------------------------- EXAMPLE 6 --------------------------
PS C:\>$a = Get-Date
PS C:\>$a.ToUniversalTime()
Tuesday, June 13, 2006 8:09:19 PM
These commands convert the current date and time to UTC time.
The first command creates a variable named $a and then assigns the object retrieved by Get-Date to the $a variable. Then, it uses the
ToUniversalTime method on the object in $a.
-------------------------- EXAMPLE 7 --------------------------
PS C:\>$a = Get-WmiObject Win32_Bios -Computer Server01
PS C:\>$a | Format-List -Property Name, @{Label="BIOS Age";Expression={(Get-Date) - $_.ConvertToDateTime($_.ReleaseDate)}}
Name : Default System BIOS
BIOS Age : 1345.17:31:07.1091047
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) uses a different date-time object than the .NET Framework date-time object that Get-Date returns. To
use date-time information from WMI in a command with date-time information from Get-Date, you have to use the ConvertToDateTime method to
convert WMI CIM_DATETIME objects to .NET Framework DateTime objects.
The commands in this example display the name and age of the BIOS on a remote computer, Server01.
The first command uses the Get-WmiObject cmdlet to get an instance of the Win32_BIOS class on Server01 and then stores it in the $a variable.
The second command uses the pipeline operator (|) to send the WMI object stored in $a to the Format-List cmdlet. The Property parameter of
Format-List specifies two properties to display in the list, "Name" and "BIOS Age". The "BIOS Age" property is specified in a hash table. The
table includes the Label key, which specifies the name of the property, and the Expression key, which contains the expression that calculates
the BIOS age. The expression uses the ConvertToDateTime method to convert each instance of ReleaseDate to a .NET Framework DateTime object.
Then, the value is subtracted from the value of the Get-Date cmdlet, which, without parameters, gets the current date.
The backtick character (`) is the line continuation character in Windows PowerShell.
-------------------------- EXAMPLE 8 --------------------------
PS C:\>Get-Date
Tuesday, June 13, 2006 12:43:42 PM
This command gets a DateTime object and displays the current date and time in the long date and long time formats for the system locale, as
though you typed "Get-Date -Format F".
-------------------------- EXAMPLE 9 --------------------------
PS C:\>Get-Date
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 11:25:31 AM
PS C:\>(Get-Date).ToString()
9/26/2006 11:25:31 AM
PS C:\>Get-Date | Add-Content Test.txt
# Adds 9/26/2006 11:25:31 AM
PS C:\>Get-Date -Format F | Add-Content Test.txt
# Adds Tuesday, September 26, 2006 11:25:31 AM
These commands demonstrate how to use Get-Date with Add-Content and other cmdlets that convert the DateTime object that Get-Date generates to
a string.
The first command shows that the default display from a "Get-Date" command is in long-date and long-time format.
The second command shows that the default display from the ToString() method of the DateTime object is in short-date and short-time format.
The third command uses a pipeline operator to send the DateTime object to the Add-Content cmdlet, which adds the content to the Test.txt file.
Because Add-Content uses the ToString() method of the DateTime object, the date that is added is in short-date and short-time format.
The fourth command uses the Format parameter of Get-Date to specify the format. When you use the Format or UFormat parameters, Get-Date
generates a string, not a DateTime object. Then, when you send the string to Add-Content, it adds the string to the Test.txt file without
changing it.
-------------------------- EXAMPLE 10 --------------------------
The first command uses the Format parameter with a value of "o" to generate a timestamp string.
PS C:\>Get-Date -Format o
2012-03-08T10:55:55.6083839-08:00
The second command prepares the timestamp to be used in a directory name. The command replaces the colon characters (:) in the string with
dots (.) and saves the result in the $timestamp variable. Replacing the colons prevents the characters that precede each colon from being
interpreted as a drive name.
PS C:\>$timestamp = Get-Date -Format o | foreach {$_ -replace ":", "."}
The third command uses the Mkdir function to create a directory with the name in the $timestamp variable.
PS C:\>mkdir C:\ps-test\$timestamp
Directory: C:\ps-test
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d---- 3/8/2012 11:01 AM 2012-03-08T11.00.24.4192623-08.00
This example shows how to use the Get-Date cmdlet to create a timestamp and how to use the timestamp in or as part of a directory name.