How to use string processing with environment variable value in WinSCP command? - scripting

Question

I want to manage (Upload\Download\Delete) a file on an FTP Server with WinSCP command line.
It says I can use environment variables! I have some text files that have the date in their name.
I just created the variable I want:
Test_%DATE:~10,4%%DATE:~4,2%%DATE:~7,2%.txt
and tested it with Windows echo command. It becomes Test_20140916.txt and that is exactly what I have now.
But when I try to upload that file in WinSCP, I get this error:
winscp> put D:\FTP\Test_%DATE:~10,4%%DATE:~4,2%%DATE:~7,2%.txt
File or folder 'D:\FTP\Test_%DATE:~10,4%%DATE:~4,2%%DATE:~7,2%.txt' does not exist.
System Error. Code: 123.
The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect
(A)bort, (R)etry, (S)kip, Ski(p) all:
Any idea how to resolve this issue?

Answer 1

WinSCP supports a timestamp formatting natively:
put D:\FTP\Test_%TIMESTAMP#yyyymmdd%
To explain why your syntax does not work: while WinSCP supports the environment variables in scripting commands, it does support only a basic syntax %NAME%, as documented:
https://winscp.net/eng/docs/scripting#syntax
To achieve, what you need, you have to resolve the value to another variable and refer to that in the WinSCP command:
set STAMP=%DATE:~10,4%%DATE:~4,2%%DATE:~7,2%
winscp.com /script=script.txt
where script.txt can use %STAMP%:
put D:\FTP\Test_%STAMP%
Also note that a value of the %DATE% is locale-specific, so make sure you test your code on the same locale on which you gonna use it. Or even better, use a locale independent wmic os get LocalDateTime:
for /F "usebackq tokens=1,2 delims==" %%i in (`wmic os get LocalDateTime /VALUE 2^>NUL`) do if '.%%i.'=='.LocalDateTime.' set LDT=%%j
set STAMP=%LDT:~0,4%%LDT:~4,2%%LDT:~6,2%