The following values are available for use in date format patterns:
Symbol | Meaning | Presentation | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| G | era | text | AD |
| C | century of era (>=0) | number | 20 |
| Y | year of era (>=0) | year | 1996 |
| YY | year of era (>=0) | year | 96 |
| YYYY | year of era (>=0) | year | 1996 |
| x | weekyear | year | 1996 |
| w | week of weekyear | number | 27 |
| e | day of week (1~7, where Monday is 1) | number | 2 |
| E | day of week | text | Tue |
| EEEE | day of week | text | Tuesday |
| y | year | year | 1996 |
| yy | year | year | 96 |
| yyyy | year | year | 1996 |
| D | day of year | number | 189 |
| M | month of year | month | 7 |
| MM | month of year | month | 07 |
| MMM | month of year | month | JUL |
| MMMM | month of year | month | JULY |
| d | day of month | number | 5 |
| dd | day of month | number | 05 |
| a | halfday of day | text | PM |
| K | hour of halfday (0~11) | number | 3 |
| KK | hour of halfday (0~11) | number | 03 |
| h | clockhour of halfday (1~12) | number | 5 |
| hh | clockhour of halfday (1~12) | number | 05 |
| H | hour of day (0~23) | number | 6 |
| HH | hour of day (0~23) | number | 06 |
| k | clockhour of day (1~24) | number | 9 |
| kk | clockhour of day (1~24) | number | 09 |
| m | minute of hour | number | 5 |
| mm | minute of hour | number | 05 |
| s | second of minute | number | 7 |
| ss | second of minute | number | 07 |
| S | fraction of second | number | 978 |
| z | time zone | text | Pacific Standard Time; PST |
| Z | time zone offset/id | zone | -0800 |
| ZZ | time zone offset/id | zone | -08:00 |
| ZZZ | time zone offset/id | zone | America/Los_Angeles |
| ' | escape for text | delimiter | |
| '' | single quote | literal | ' |
The number of letters used in the pattern determines the format.
- Text: If the number of pattern letters is 4 or more, the full form is used; otherwise a short or abbreviated form is used if available.
- Number: The minimum number of digits. Shorter numbers are zero-padded to this amount.
- Year: Numeric presentation for year and weekyear fields are handled specially. For example, if the count of 'y' is 2, the year will be displayed as the zero-based year of the century, which is two digits.
- Month: 3 or over, use text, otherwise use number.
- Zone: 'Z' outputs offset without a colon, 'ZZ' outputs the offset with a colon, 'ZZZ' or more outputs the zone id.
- Zone names: Time zone names ('z') cannot be parsed.
- Any characters in the pattern that are not in the ranges of ['a'..'z'] and ['A'..'Z'] will be treated as quoted text. For instance, characters like ':', '.', ' ', '#' and '?' will appear in the resulting time text even they are not embraced within single quotes.