Setting parameters to format dates

These parameters are used to set the format of dates.

Table 1. Date formatting parameters
Symbol	Meaning	Presentation	Example
G	era designator	(Text)	AD
y	year	(Number)	1996
M	month in year	(Text and Number)	July and 07
d	day in month	(Number)	10
h	hour in am/pm (1-12)	(Number)	12
H	hour in day (0-23)	(Number)	0
m	minute in hour	(Number)	30
s	second in minute	(Number)	55
S	millisecond	(Number)	978
E	day in week	(Text)	Tuesday
D	day in year	(Number)	189
F	day of week in month	(Number)	2 (2nd Wed in July)
w	week in year	(Number)	27
W	week in month	(Number)	2
a	am/pm marker	(Text)	PM
k	hour in day (1-24)	(Number)	24
K	hour in am/pm (0-11)	(Number)	0
z	time zone	(Text)	Pacific Standard Time
'	escape for text	(Delimiter)
''	single quote	(Literal)

The number of letters determines format:

Text

Four or more pattern letters, use full form.
Less than four, use short or abbreviated form if one exists.

Example: Day/Month/Year

d,M,y = 3,3,3.
dd,MM,yy = 03,03,03.
dd,MMM,yy = 03,Mar,03.
dd,MMMM,yyyy = 03,March,2003.

Lower and upper case:

The case of letters used in date and time code is not consistent. For example, "M" for month but "d" for day and "y" for year.
Upper and lower case letters can mean different things. For example, "s" for second and "S" for millisecond.

Incorrect format:

If a date or time code is entered incorrectly, nothing is returned.

Other characters:

Any characters in the pattern that are not in the ranges of ['a'..'z'] and ['A'..'Z'] is treated as quoted text. For example, characters like ':', '.', ' ', '#' and '@' appear in the resulting time text even if they are not embraced within single quotes.

Examples Using the US locale:

Table 2. Example
Format Pattern	Result
"yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' hh:mm:ss z"	1996.07.10 AD at 15:08:56 PDT
"EEE, MMM d, ''yy"	Wed, July 10, '96
"h:mm a"	12:08 PM
"hh 'o''clock' a, zzzz"	12 o'clock PM, Pacific Standard Time
"K:mm a, z"	0:00 PM, PST
"yyyyy.MMMMM.dd GGG hh:mm aaa"	1996.July.10 AD 12:08 PM