If the /F parameter is not present, Fdate displays a help screen.
If you get Fdate's help screen when you don't expect it, you probably
forgot to specify the /F parameter or mistyped it.
Parameters can be in any order and upper or lower case.
Note that although function and format parms are not case sensitive,
they are "text sensitive". If any characters are missing, added, or
mistyped, the parameter will be rejected.
What parameters are required (other than /F) depends on the function
requested with the /F parameter. Unnecessary parameters are simply ignored.
SUMMARY OF PARAMETERS
/F
Requests a particular Fdate function. This is Fdate's most important
parameter.
/A and /B
For date functions, these two parameters are used to specify dates.
For the ordinary arithmetic functions, these parameters are used to
specify numbers. For date functions, if either of these parameters is
omitted, it defaults to today's date.
/C specifies a "custom" output date format
If the /C parameter is omitted, it is assumed that the
output format will be specified on the /O parameter.
/D day-of-week number (used only with W function)
/I specifies format of input date(s)
If the /I parameter is omitted, /Imm-dd-ccyy is assumed.
/J specifies justification, length, and pad character(s)
If the /J parameter is omitted, no justification formatting is done.
/K The GETK function takes a /K "keymask" parameter that tells it which
keys to accept.
/W The GETK function takes a /W "seconds to wait" parameter that tells
it how many seconds to wait before returning the first key in the
/K "keymask" parameter. Valid values are in the range of 1..36000
(10 hours). Default value of /W is 36000 (10 hours).
/L specifies language of output.
/Lus US (American) English-language output
/Lfr French-language output
/Lgr German-language output
/Lsp Spanish-language output
/Ldk Danish-language output (requires codepage 850 to display correctly)
If the /L parameter is omitted, /Lus [American English] is assumed.
/N number of days (always a number)
/O specifies format of output date
If the /O parameter is omitted, /Od1 is assumed.
/Q specifies a prompt string for a GET, GETU, or GETK function, or the
input string for a string-handling function (SUBSTR, LEN, UPPER).
/P specifies a prefix string for the output
/S specifies a suffix string for the output
These optional parameters may always be specified or omitted.
They must be enclosed in single quotes, double quotes, or
square brackets
Note that "whitespace" will be removed from these strings, so
formatting of /P and /S strings cannot be controlled using spaces. To
format strings, use periods or ASCII 255 (hex'ff') as filler.
.EXAMPLES....:
Fdate /Ff /P"Today is "
Fdate /Fdif /B12-25-TTTT /P"It is " /S" days until Christmas"
.DISCUSSION..:
/T For date functions, /T overrides the time portion of the date on the
/A parm. (Note that it does NOT override the time portion of the date
on the /B parm.)
/V specifies that output is to be placed in an environment variable
rather than written to standard output.
If /V is specified but not followed by the name of an environment
variable, then /VFdate is assumed, and output is placed in the Fdate
environment variable.
/X Used only with the weekday arithmetic function (/Fw). By default,
if the date specified on the /A parm falls on the day of the week
specified on the /D parm, then the /A date is considered to be the
first date meeting the day-of-week criterion. If the /X parm is
specified, then the /A date will NOT be considered to meet the
day-of-week criterion.
see function W - Weekday Date Arithmetic
/Y Years to look back when converting a 2-digit year to a 4-digit
year. Valid values are in range 0..99. Default is 80.