Batch Program to Rename file with date & counter

One of my interface development requirements specified to take backups of a file with the prevailing sysdate appended.
Hence i sat down to see how this could be achieved with Batch Programming as my environment was Windows Platform.

An initial code was adapted from MSFN Forums & it behaved very well:

@Echo off
rem Original Batch File Code Location: http://www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t47812.html
rem Adapted By: Shalabhsneha Katdare (SHALABHKATDARE AT GMAILDOTCOM)
rem Reading input file
If "%1" EQU "" (
 Echo You must use parameter - name of file to rename.
 Goto :EOF
    ) ELSE (
 Set strFile2Rename=%1
    )
If not exist %strFile2Rename% (
    Echo %strFile2Rename% was not found!
    Goto :EOF
    )
For /f "usebackq delims=. tokens=1,2" %%i IN (`echo %strFile2Rename%`)    Do Set strFileExtension=%%j

rem Main code
call:ConvertDate
call:RenameFile
Goto:EOF
    
:ConvertDate    
rem Reading date format, converting and saving date
for /f "skip=1 tokens=2-4 delims=(-)" %%a in ('echo.^|date') do (
 set A=%%a&set B=%%b&set C=%%c)
set t=2&if "%date%z" LSS "A" set t=1
for /f "skip=1 tokens=2-4 delims=(-)" %%a in ('echo.^|date') do (
 for /f "tokens=%t%-4 delims=.-/ " %%d in ('date/t') do (
   set dd=%%d&set mm=%%e&set yy=%%f))
Goto:EOF

:RenameFile
ren %strFile2Rename% File_%dd%-%mm%-%yy%.%strFileExtension%
Echo File %strFile2Rename% is renamed to File_%dd%-%mm%-%yy%.%strFileExtension%

Usage:
cmd:\>rename2date filename.fileext
Output:
filename_sysdate.fileext

As you could see this was the perfect thing which i wanted. But soon i faced a major bottleneck!
The backup location was common for all the files. Hence in a given day, if i needed to take backup of the same file again, the batch program failed as the file formed upon renaming will be pre-existing from the backup taken earlier.

This evolved my initial requirement to a batch program doing rename with sysdate & counter added to it so that multiple renames in day could be supported for the same file.
Further modification to the initial above logic resulted into below code:

@Echo off
rem Original Batch File Code Location: http://www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t47812.html
rem Adapted By: Shalabhsneha Katdare (SHALABHKATDARE AT GMAILDOTCOM)
rem v1.1 [Added counter facility alongwith date. So we can rename a file multiple times on a given day!]
rem v1.0 [Plain rename facility without counter, i.e. on a given day the file can be renamed only once!]
rem Reading input file
set count=1
If "%1" EQU "" (
 Echo You must use parameter - name of file to rename.
 Goto :EOF
    ) ELSE (
 Set strFile2Rename=%1
    )
If not exist %strFile2Rename% (
    Echo %strFile2Rename% was not found!
    Goto :EOF
    )
For /f "usebackq delims=. tokens=1,2" %%i IN (`echo %strFile2Rename%`)    Do Set strFileExtension=%%j
For /f "usebackq delims=. tokens=1,2" %%i IN (`echo %strFile2Rename%`)    Do Set strFile=%%i
rem Main code
call:ConvertDate
call:RenFile
Goto:EOF
    
:ConvertDate    
rem Reading date format, converting and saving date
for /f "skip=1 tokens=2-4 delims=(-)" %%a in ('echo.^|date') do (
 set A=%%a&set B=%%b&set C=%%c)
set t=2&if "%date%z" LSS "A" set t=1
for /f "skip=1 tokens=2-4 delims=(-)" %%a in ('echo.^|date') do (
 for /f "tokens=%t%-4 delims=.-/ " %%d in ('date/t') do (
   set dd=%%d&set mm=%%e&set yy=%%f))
Goto:EOF

:RenFile
rem Renaming the file with date & counter
set FileCheck=%strFile%_%dd%-%mm%-%yy%_%count%.%strFileExtension%
If not exist "%FileCheck%" ( 
ren %strFile2Rename% %strFile%_%dd%-%mm%-%yy%_%count%.%strFileExtension% 
Goto :EOF
) ELSE (
set /a count=count+1 
call:RenFile)
Goto:EOF

Usage:
cmd:\>rename2date filename.fileext
Output:
filename_sysdate_counter.fileext

If you see the revision in code, i have just made a simple recursive call so that until a file (Filename formed post rename) is existing we would loop to increment the counter so that we finally arrive at unique filename with sysdate & a counter permitting us multiple renames on any given day for same file.

One thing which i struggled with Batch Programming is, its very sensitive to its syntax semantics. If a brace or two are not properly placed, the program would throw a annoying error of "The syntax of the command is incorrect"

It is difficult to trace where exactly is the syntax error coming from, but a quick echo ON helps & guides to correct directions.

So finally i have my batch program to rename a file with date & a counter :-D

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