Solved VB Script syntax problem

[Nosmas]

Although I am fairly new to VBS I have successfully modified a Macrium Reflect generated script for backups of my system, but now wish to enhance the script and to write (log) entries to a text file. Each time the backup is run I want to create a new text file and to differentiate between files by incorporating the date (and possibly the time) in the file title. The following is an extract which is giving me a problem: -

1 OPTION EXPLICIT
2 Dim objFSO, objLog, today, strLogFileName
3
4 today = Date()
5 wscript.echo today
6 strLogFileName = "Backup-log " & today
7 wscript.echo strLogFileName
8
9 Set ObjFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
10 Set objLog = objFSO.CreateTextFile("c:\Users\Peter\Desktop\" & strLogFileName & ".txt")

The line numbers are of course NOT part of the script. The echo's at lines 5 and 7 are purely to ensure that the correct parameters are being constructed and will not be included when the script finally runs, and Desktop will eventually be replaced by a different folder. Line 10 is giving a runtime error of 'Path not found'. Can someone please advise me what I have done wrong in this script?

 

[Tookeri]

Nothing wrong with your code. I tested it and it created a file called Backup-log 2014-09-11.txt

But I assume maybe you have a different date format? Make sure you don't have any / or \ in the file name before creating the text file.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Please echo this: ("c:\Users\Peter\Desktop\" & strLogFileName & ".txt")
and post the result

 

[Nosmas]

Tookeri and Kaktussoft thank you for your replies. I inserted a line to echo the string following CreateTextFile INCLUDING the opening and closing brackets and when I ran the script it echoed the string WITHOUT the brackets but with the correct date 11/09/14 (as per my system's date format, although I could script this to YYMMDD if I wanted to) BUT then displayed a Runtime error of 'Path not found' and of course did not create the text file.

 

[Tookeri]

Then script it to YYMMDD

Or set a hard coded value for the today variable just to test: 14-09-11

 

[Nosmas]

Changed Dim 'today' to 'thisday' and added function: -

' ### This function gets the date in format yymmdd ###
Function Today_Date()
thisday=Right(Year(Date),2) & Right("0" & Month(Date),2) & Right("0" & Day(Date),2)
End Function

Result
echo thisday = 140911
echo strLogFileName = Backup-log 140911
echo of path = c:\Users\Peter\Desktop\Backup-log 140911.txt
and created file with correct title.

Eureka!!! I must admit I don't really understand exactly how the function works but IT DOES!! It seems that two digits of each element of the date are specified but exactly what does the 'Right' accomplish and what are the "0"'s for? Anyway thanks for the suggestion to alter the format. Perhaps the / in the date are the cause of the problem "Path not found"?

One thing I have discovered is that if the script is run a second or more times on the same day it does not result in an error message saying the file already exists, but just does not attempt to create another file of the same name. Obviously if there is a likelihood of the script being run more than once a day then it would be necessary to include the time in the name.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Changed Dim 'today' to 'thisday' and added function: -

' ### This function gets the date in format yymmdd ###
Function Today_Date()
thisday=Right(Year(Date),2) & Right("0" & Month(Date),2) & Right("0" & Day(Date),2)
End Function

Result
echo thisday = 140911
echo strLogFileName = Backup-log 140611
echo of path = c:\Users\Peter\Desktop\Backup-log 140611.txt
and created file with correct title.

Eureka!!! I must admit I don't really understand exactly how the function works but IT DOES!! It seems that two digits of each element of the date are specified but exactly what does the 'Right' accomplish and what are the "0"'s for? Anyway thanks for the suggestion to alter the format. Perhaps the / in the date are the cause of the problem "Path not found"?

One thing I have discovered is that if the script is run a second or more times on the same day it does not result in an error message saying the file already exists, but just does not attempt to create another file of the same name. Obviously if there is a likelihood of the script being run more than once a day then it would be necessary to include the time in the name.

It adds "0" in front of the month number for example. After that it takes only the last 2 characters.

month 3-> month 03
month 11-> month 011 -> (keep last 2 only) 11


/ is not allowed in a filename!