Applescript time

Question

The Applescript line
set the date_stamp to ((the current date) as string)
yields me the date in long form.
How do I get the date in short form - ie something like 20-7-11?

Answer 1

If you're working with file paths, you should be careful; short date string uses slashes, which can confuse the file system since POSIX uses slashes as directory delimiters.  you might want to modify the slashes into hyphens, using something like the following:
set ds to tid(tid(short date string of (current date), "/"), "-")
on tid(input, delim)
          set {oldTID, my text item delimiters} to {my text item delimiters, delim}
          if class of input is list then
                    set output to input as text
          else
                    set output to text items of input
          end if
          set my text item delimiters to oldTID
          return output
end tid