.NET Framework - temporary file names via Get-Date

Asked By Larry__Weiss

18-Mar-10 11:00 AM

The "PowerTip of the Day" article at
http://app.en25.com/e/es.aspx?s=1403&e=2867&elq=8322eea60ce14904acb144f2ae454b60
displayed this code to generate temporary file names

PS C:> (Get-Date -format 'yyyy-MM-dd hh-mm-ss') + '.tmp'
2010-03-18 09-48-08.tmp

I recoded it to do it this way

PS C:> (Get-Date).Ticks.ToString() + '.tmp'
634045027709549764.tmp

Now suppose I later wanted to turn that "634045027709549764" back into a legible
date-time expression like "2010-03-18 09-48-08".   Is that possible?

- Larry

18-Mar-10 11:44 AM

PS C:\> $a = (get-date).ticks.tostring()

PS C:\> $a
634044984512885070

PS C:\> get-date ([long]$a)

Thursday, March 18, 2010 8:40:51 AM


-Paul

18-Mar-10 12:43 PM

Thanks!  I did not expect it to be so straightforward.

That makes me wonder about the units involved in ticks.
How many ticks equal one second?

I guess I can get PowerShell to tell me:

PS C:> $a1 = [datetime] "March 18, 2010 11:23:01 AM"
PS C:> $a1n = [long](($a1).ticks.tostring())
PS C:> $a2 = [datetime] "March 18, 2010 11:23:02 AM"
PS C:> $a2n = [long](($a2).ticks.tostring())
PS C:> $a2n - $a1n
10000000

So there must be 10,000,000 ticks per second.

Did I do that right?

- Larry

18-Mar-10 02:46 PM

Much easier to do this

PS> New-TimeSpan -Seconds 1


Days              : 0
Hours             : 0
Minutes           : 0
Seconds           : 1
Milliseconds      : 0
Ticks             : 10000000
TotalDays         : 1.15740740740741E-05
TotalHours        : 0.000277777777777778
TotalMinutes      : 0.0166666666666667
TotalSeconds      : 1
TotalMilliseconds : 1000

--
Richard Siddaway
All scripts are supplied "as is" and with no warranty
PowerShell MVP
Blog and PowerShell User Group:
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18-Mar-10 02:54 PM

- Larry