FMPP - Date and Time Patterns

Date and Time Patterns

Note: Materials on this page are copy-pasted from Sun Microsystems's Java API documentation, for your convenience.

Date and time formats are specified by date and time pattern strings. Within date and time pattern strings, unquoted letters from 'A' to 'Z' and from 'a' to 'z' are interpreted as pattern letters representing the components of a date or time string. Text can be quoted using single quotes (') to avoid interpretation. "''" represents a single quote. All other characters are not interpreted; they're simply copied into the output string during formatting or matched against the input string during parsing.

The following pattern letters are defined (all other characters from 'A' to 'Z' and from 'a' to 'z' are reserved):

Letter Date or Time Component Presentation Examples
G Era designator Text AD
y Year Year 1996; 96
M Month in year Month July; Jul; 07
w Week in year Number 27
W Week in month Number 2
D Day in year Number 189
d Day in month Number 10
F Day of week in month Number 2
E Day in week Text Tuesday; Tue
a Am/pm marker Text PM
H Hour in day (0-23) Number 0
k Hour in day (1-24) Number 24
K Hour in am/pm (0-11) Number 0
h Hour in am/pm (1-12) Number 12
m Minute in hour Number 30
s Second in minute Number 55
S Millisecond Number 978
z Time zone General time zone Pacific Standard Time; PST; GMT-08:00
Z Time zone RFC 822 time zone -0800

Letter	Date or Time Component	Presentation	Examples
`G`	Era designator	Text	`AD`
`y`	Year	Year	`1996`; `96`
`M`	Month in year	Month	`July`; `Jul`; `07`
`w`	Week in year	Number	`27`
`W`	Week in month	Number	`2`
`D`	Day in year	Number	`189`
`d`	Day in month	Number	`10`
`F`	Day of week in month	Number	`2`
`E`	Day in week	Text	`Tuesday`; `Tue`
`a`	Am/pm marker	Text	`PM`
`H`	Hour in day (0-23)	Number	`0`
`k`	Hour in day (1-24)	Number	`24`
`K`	Hour in am/pm (0-11)	Number	`0`
`h`	Hour in am/pm (1-12)	Number	`12`
`m`	Minute in hour	Number	`30`
`s`	Second in minute	Number	`55`
`S`	Millisecond	Number	`978`
`z`	Time zone	General time zone	`Pacific Standard Time`; `PST`; `GMT-08:00`
`Z`	Time zone	RFC 822 time zone	`-0800`

Pattern letters are usually repeated, as their number determines the exact presentation:

Text: For formatting, 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. For parsing, both forms are accepted, independent of the number of pattern letters.
Number: For formatting, the number of pattern letters is the minimum number of digits, and shorter numbers are zero-padded to this amount. For parsing, the number of pattern letters is ignored unless it's needed to separate two adjacent fields.
Year: For formatting, if the number of pattern letters is 2, the year is truncated to 2 digits; otherwise it is interpreted as a number.
For parsing, if the number of pattern letters is more than 2, the year is interpreted literally, regardless of the number of digits. So using the pattern "MM/dd/yyyy", "01/11/12" parses to Jan 11, 12 A.D.
For parsing with the abbreviated year pattern ("y" or "yy"), SimpleDateFormat must interpret the abbreviated year relative to some century. It does this by adjusting dates to be within 80 years before and 20 years after the time the SimpleDateFormat instance is created. For example, using a pattern of "MM/dd/yy" and a SimpleDateFormat instance created on Jan 1, 1997, the string "01/11/12" would be interpreted as Jan 11, 2012 while the string "05/04/64" would be interpreted as May 4, 1964. During parsing, only strings consisting of exactly two digits, as defined by Character.isDigit(char), will be parsed into the default century. Any other numeric string, such as a one digit string, a three or more digit string, or a two digit string that isn't all digits (for example, "-1"), is interpreted literally. So "01/02/3" or "01/02/003" are parsed, using the same pattern, as Jan 2, 3 AD. Likewise, "01/02/-3" is parsed as Jan 2, 4 BC.
Month: If the number of pattern letters is 3 or more, the month is interpreted as text; otherwise, it is interpreted as a number.
General time zone: Time zones are interpreted as text if they have names. For time zones representing a GMT offset value, the following syntax is used:
```
     GMTOffsetTimeZone:
             GMT Sign Hours : Minutes
     Sign: one of
             + -
     Hours:
             Digit
             Digit Digit
     Minutes:
             Digit Digit
     Digit: one of
             0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
```
Hours must be between 0 and 23, and Minutes must be between 00 and 59. The format is locale independent and digits must be taken from the Basic Latin block of the Unicode standard.
For parsing, RFC 822 time zones are also accepted.
RFC 822 time zone: For formatting, the RFC 822 4-digit time zone format is used:
```
     RFC822TimeZone:
             Sign TwoDigitHours Minutes
     TwoDigitHours:
             Digit Digit
```
TwoDigitHours must be between 00 and 23. Other definitions are as for general time zones.
For parsing, general time zones are also accepted.

SimpleDateFormat also supports localized date and time pattern strings. In these strings, the pattern letters described above may be replaced with other, locale dependent, pattern letters. SimpleDateFormat does not deal with the localization of text other than the pattern letters; that's up to the client of the class.

Examples

The following examples show how date and time patterns are interpreted in the U.S. locale. The given date and time are 2001-07-04 12:08:56 local time in the U.S. Pacific Time time zone.

Date and Time Pattern Result
"yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss z" 2001.07.04 AD at 12:08:56 PDT
"EEE, MMM d, ''yy" Wed, Jul 4, '01
"h:mm a" 12:08 PM
"hh 'o''clock' a, zzzz" 12 o'clock PM, Pacific Daylight Time
"K:mm a, z" 0:08 PM, PDT
"yyyyy.MMMMM.dd GGG hh:mm aaa" 02001.July.04 AD 12:08 PM
"EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z" Wed, 4 Jul 2001 12:08:56 -0700
"yyMMddHHmmssZ" 010704120856-0700

Date and Time Pattern	Result
`"yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss z"`	`2001.07.04 AD at 12:08:56 PDT`
`"EEE, MMM d, ''yy"`	`Wed, Jul 4, '01`
`"h:mm a"`	`12:08 PM`
`"hh 'o''clock' a, zzzz"`	`12 o'clock PM, Pacific Daylight Time`
`"K:mm a, z"`	`0:08 PM, PDT`
`"yyyyy.MMMMM.dd GGG hh:mm aaa"`	`02001.July.04 AD 12:08 PM`
`"EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z"`	`Wed, 4 Jul 2001 12:08:56 -0700`
`"yyMMddHHmmssZ"`	`010704120856-0700`

Generated on Dec 16, 2007 10:12 PM GMT
For FMPP version 0.9.13