Fdate

FDATE has been retired and is no longer available. FDATE documentation is available HERE.

Why was Fdate retired?

• Fdate had become obsolete.

  We now live in a 32-bit world. Fdate was a 16-bit application written in Turbo Pascal. Being a 16-bit application in a 32-bit world was a handicap. Under some circumstances, it carried a performance penalty. It also meant that Fdate could not process long filenames (that is, filenames in anything other than the old DOS 8.3 format).

• Batch files have become obsolete.

  First of all, it is important to realize that when you write batch files, you are actually writing programs or scripts in a scripting language: let's call it BatchFileLanguage. BatchFileLanguage, as a scripting language, is grossly underpowered. Its control structures are primitive. Its builtin capabilties are limited. It is not object-oriented. Today, with a number of good free and open-source scripting languages available, there is no reason for anyone to continue using batch files. Learn a good scripting language. It is not that difficult. You will be happy you did.

What scripting language should I learn?

There are may free and open-source scripting languages available. Notable ones include Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP, and Tcl. Personally, I recommend Python. Python, like the other scripting languages that I mentioned, is powerful, free, well-documented, and runs on virtually every platform in existence (including Windows). What sets Python apart is ease of learning and ease of use. If you are looking to move up from BatchFileLanguage, Python is your best choice. You can learn enough Python to actually be able to do useful things in a reasonable amount of time. The official Python web site is http://www.python.org. You can download and install Python from http://www.python.org/download/. There are many books available to help you learn Python.

Fdate was really good for working with dates and with files. How can I use Python to do some of the things that I used Fdate to do?

Try pyfdate.