UFormat

The UFormat parameters allow us to mention a format that we want to display in Unix format. The syntax of this format command is as follows Get-Date -UFormat %\<value\>. The cmdlet -UFormat always returns an output as a String value. Below are various specifiers list and their descriptions that are used with -UFormat parameters provided by Microsoft.

List of UFormat Specifiers

Date and Time	c	Returns date and time in abbreviation (Wed Jan 6 18:35:23 2021)
Time	p	AM or PM
r	returns time in 12-hour format (08:24:43 AM)
R	returns time in 24-hour format without seconds (15:32)
T or X	returns time in 24-hour format (15:32:43)
Z	returns time zone offset from Universal Time Coordinate (UTC)
Hour	k or H	returns hour in 24-hour format (17)
I or l (upper case ‘I’, (lower case L)	returns hour in 12-hour format (05)
Minutes & Seconds	M	returns minutes (40)
S	returns seconds (04)
s	returns seconds elapsed since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 (1150451174.95705)
Date	D	returns date in mm/dd/yy format (eg. 01/18/21)
x	returns date in standard format for locale (06/12/21 for English-US)
Month	b or h	returns month name in abbreviated (Jan)
B	returns month name in full (January)
m	returns month number (06)
Year	C	returns century (21 for 2021)
g or y	returns year in 2-digit format (21)
G or Y	returns year in 4-digit format (2021)
Week	U or W	returns the week of the year (00-52)
V	returns the week of the year (01-53)
Day	a	returns day of the week as abbreviated name (Mon)
A	returns day of the week as full name (Monday)
u or w	returns day of the week as number (Monday = 1)
d	returns day of the month in 2 digits (05)
e	returns day of the month – digit preceded by a space ( 5)
j	returns day of the year – (1-366)
Special Characters	n	returns newline character (\n)
t	returns a tab character (\t)

Get-Date with -UFormat parameter that uses various format specifiers returns a String output. For example, look at the result of the following -UFormat cmdlet:

1. Get-Date -UFormat “%A %m/%d/%Y %R %Z  

How the above UFormat specifiers return the string value is defined below:

Specifier	Definition
%A	returns day of the week as full name (Wednesday)
%m	returns month number (01)
%d	returns day of the month in 2 digits (06)
%Y	returns year in 4-digit format (2021)
%R	returns time in 24-hour format without seconds (21:38)
%Z	returns time zone offset from Universal Time Coordinate (UTC) (+05).

Calculate and display a date’s day of the year (Get-Date -Year 2021 -Month 12 -Day 31).DayOfYear

To calculate the date’s of the year, the Get-Date uses three parameters to determine the date. These parameters are -Year, -Month, and -Day. Its command is enclosed within the parentheses so that the DayofYear property evaluates the output result. For example, calculating the total day at the given date of a year.

1. (Get-Date -Year 2021 -Month 12 -Day 31).DayOfYear  
2. (Get-Date -Year 2021 -Month 06 -Day 31).DayOfYear  
3. (Get-Date -Year 2021 -Month 02 -Day 31).DayOfYear  

Checking whether a date is adjusted for daylight savings time:

To check whether a date is adjusted for daylight savings time or not, it requires a boolean method. For example:

1. $DST = Get-Date  
2. $DST.IsDaylightSavingTime()  

In the above command, we use a variable $DST that stores the result of Get-Date. A variable $DST calls the IsDaylightSavingTime() method to test whether a date is adjusted for daylight savings time or not.

Convert the current time to UTC:

The ToUniversalTime() method is used to convert the local system’s current time into a Universal Time Coordinate (UTC). Let’s see an example to convert current time to UTC offset. First of all, we will get the current date and time with UTC; after that, we convert it to Universal Time.

1. Get-Date -UFormat “%A %B/%d/%Y %T %Z”  
2. $Time = Get-Date  
3. $Time.ToUniversalTime()  

The Get-Date command uses a -UFormat parameter and some format specifiers to return the local system’s current date and time. The format specifier %Z specifies the Universal Time Coordinate offset of +05.

A variable $Time store the current date and time result returned by Get-Date. The returned value ($Time) calls the ToUniversalTime() method to convert the local system’s current date and time to UTC offset.

Create a timestamp using Get-Date -Format:

To create a timestamp using the Get-Date -Format, let’s see the following cmdlet example:

1. $timestamp = Get-Date -Format o | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace “:”, “.” }  
2. New-Item -Path D:\TestFolder\$timestamp -Type Directory  

In the above example, the format specifier creates a timestamp String object for an input directory name. This timestamp contains values of date, time, and UTC offset.

In the above command, a variable $timestamp stores the results of the Get-Date command. Get-Date uses the Format parameter and a format specifier o that creates a timestamp String object in lowercase.

The object is sent back through the pipeline to ForEach-Object, and variable $_ represents the current pipeline object. The timestamp string values are specified by colons, which are replaced by periods.

The New-Item uses a -Path parameter that determines the location for the newly-created directory. A variable $timestamp included in the path represents the directory name, and the -Time parameter indicates that a directory is created.

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