As much as I would like to say that I understand exactly what you are saying - I must admit that I am still at a loss.

Although I understand the code and what it is doing - What is "a port of GNU date for WIN"?

I have the UNIX MKS toolkit installed and it has the UNIX date function but the man page does not list the %s variable and the code you gave does not work so I assume that the "port of GNU date for WIN" is what is missing?

Can you possibly enlighten me further as this would be saving me a lot of work?

Thank you for all your help - It is much appreciated.