Date and Time Format Patterns

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.