Specifying Dates Using Java Date Format

The Java SimpleDateFormat class is used to convert dates to text (format) and convert text to dates (parse). An example for date formatting using Java SimpleDateFormat would be the following:

=Time.format(Time.now('America/Los Angeles'),'yyyyMMdd')

You can also use the Time.format() REL function as follows, note that it accepts the i to include the time zone:

=Time.format(Time.now('America/Los Angeles'), 'dd/MM/yyyy hh:mm:ss i')

Result:

2023/09/28 11:41:58 Europe/Paris

The following table lists all valid characters that can be used to form a pattern which represents the date format.

Letter	Date or Time Component	Presentation	Examples
G	G	Era designator	Text	G - AD
y	Year of era	Number	y, yyy, yyyy - 2023 yy - 23 yyyyy - 02023
Y	week-based-year	year	Y, YYY, YYYY - 2023 YY - 23 YYYYY - 02023
M	Month in year (context sensitive)	Number/Text	M - 3 MM - 03 MMM, MMMM - Mar MMMMM - March {ca}dd MMMM - 02 de març
L	Month in year (standalone)	Number/Text	L - 3 LL - 03 LLL, LLLL - Mar LLLLL - March {ca}dd LLLL - 02 març
w	Week in year	Number	w - 9 ww - 09
W	Week in month	Number	W - 1
D	Day in year	Number	D,DD - 61 DDD - 061
d	Day in month	Number	d - 2 dd - 02
F	Day of week in month	Number	F - 1
E	Day in week	Text	E, EE, EEE - Thu EEEE - Thursday
u	Day number of week (1 = Monday, ..., 7 = Sunday) - this letter changes in 9.2.9	Number	u - 4 uu - 04
a	AM/PM marker	Text	a - PM
H	Hour in day (0-23)	Number	H - 15 HH - 15
k	Hour in day (1-24)	Number	k - 15 kk - 15
K	Hour in AM/PM (0-11)	Number	K - 3 KK - 03
h	Hour in AM/PM (1-12)	Number	h - 3 hh - 03
m	Minute in hour	Number	m, mm - 45
s	Second in minute	Number	s, ss - 44
S	Millisecond	Number	S, SS, SSS - 998
z	Time zone	General time zone	z, zz, zzz - CET zzzz - Central European Standard Time
Z	Time zone	RFC 822 time zone	Z - +0100 ZZ, ZZZ - +0100
X	Time zone	ISO 8601 time zone	X - +01 XX, XXX - +01:00
i	Olson time zone	Text	i - Europe/Berlin'
{<locale>}	Olson time zone	Text	{de} EEEE - Donnerstag

important

Do not exceed the number of pattern letters above or you will encounter. The letter u will change to year in a future version.

Escaping

To insert text in a date format, you specify '<text>', to insert a ' in the date format, you escape it with an ', so '' will be formatted as '. Note that if you are using REL, you must escape each ' with a \.

Example

The given date and time are 2023-09-28 12:08:56 local time in the US Pacific Time time zone.

Java SimpleDateFormat	Result
yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss z	2023.07.04 AD at 12:08:56 PDT
EEE, MMM d, ''yy	Thu, Sep 28, '23
EEE, MMM d, ''yy	Wed, Jul 4, '23
EEE, MMM d, ''yy	Wed, Jul 4, '23
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	2023.Sep.28 AD 12:08 PM
{en} EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z	Thu, 28 Sep 2023 12:08:56 -0700
{fr} EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z	Thu, 28 Sep 2023 12:08:56 -0700
yyMMddHHmmssZ	230928120856-0700
yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ	2023-09-28T12:08:56.235-0700
yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssXXX	2023-09-28T12:08:56-07:00
yyyy-'W'ww-u	2023-W27-3
MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss i	07/04/2023 12:08:56 America/Los Angeles
=Time.format(Time.now('Europe/Paris'), 'dd/MM/yyyy hh:mm:ss i')	28/09/2023 21:08:56 Europe/Paris
=Time.format(Time.now('America/Los Angeles'), 'yyyyMMddHHmm')	202309281208
=Time.format(Time.now('America/Los Angeles'), 'yyyy.MM.dd.HH-mm-ss')	2023.09.28.12-08-56
=Time.format(Time.now('America/Los Angeles'), 'EEE-dd-MM-yy')	Thu-28-09-23
=Time.format(Time.now('America/Los Angeles'), 'hmma')	1208PM
=Time.format(Time.now('Europe/Paris'), 'dd MM \'\'yy hh:mm:ss i')	28 09 '23 21:08:56 Europe/Paris

See Also

• REL Function Library
• Querying the Model with SQL