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.INPUT_FMT...: F - File -- Get A File Date/Time Stamp
.ALIAS.......: gedatia
.DISCUSSION..:
Input format F (file) tells Fdate that /A and /B will specify filenames, and that Fdate should pick up the input date and time from the date/time stamp on a file.

   Fdate /Ff /If /Afilex.txt /P"FILEX.TXT last updated: " /Ofull


Note that if you specify /If, then both /A and /B will be interpreted as filenames.

Because the input format applies to both /A and /B parms, it is not possible to put a filename in /A and a date literal in /B, and then (say) use the "comp" or "dif" function to compare them. You must first extract the file's date into an environment variable, and then compare that environment variable to the date literal.

The only exception to this rule is the pseudodate "t" (i.e. /At or /Bt) which will pick up the current date and time from the system clock. This feature will allow you, for example, to compare the date of a file to today's date (see EXAMPLES).

A filename may (but need not) be fully qualified: i.e. "FooBar.1" and "C:\DBASE\WORKDIR\FooBar.1" are both acceptable.

A filename may contain wildcards, but only if there is only one file that matches the wildcard. If Fdate finds more than one file that matches the filespec, it will return an error message.