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Text Item Format Mask Symbols for DATE and DATETIME Values

The following table shows the symbols most commonly used in Date/time format masks.

Symbol

Description

9

Represents one numeric character. The number of 9's determines the number of digits the text item can display.

MM

Month (01-12).

MON

Name of month, 3-letter abbreviation.

MONTH

Name of month, padded with blank spaces to length of 9 characters.

DD

Day of month (1-31).

DY

Name of day, 3-letter abbreviation.

DAY

Name of day, padded with blanks to length of 9 characters.

YYYY,YYY, YY,
or Y

4, 3, 2, or 1-digit year.

HH or HH12

Hour of day (1-12).

HH24

Hour of day (0-23).

MI

Minute (0-59).

SS

Second (0-59).

AM or A.M. or PM or P.M.

Meridian indicator.

TH

Ordinal number (e.g., "DDTH" for "15TH").

SP

Spelled out number (e.g.,, "DDSP" for "FIFTEEN").

SPTH or THSP

Spelled out ordinal number (e.g.,, "DDSPTH" for "FIFTEENTH"

FM

Prefix used with symbols such as MONTH and DAY to suppress padding added by these symbols. Also suppresses leading zeroes for number symbols such as HH and MM. FM is a toggle. If FM appears twice in a Date format model,, blank padding and leading zeroes are suppressed for elements after the first FM,, and are re-enabled after the second.

Embedded Characters in DATE Values

To embed a character string in a Date/time format mask, enclose it in double quotes. (Note: you cannot embed double quotes themselves as characters in a mask. In other words, attempting to have something like DD"MM appear by coding the mask as DD"""MM will produce unexpected results.)

Spaces and punctuation characters (/ . , : ' - ) can be embedded in a Date/time format mask without enclosing them in double quotes.

Examples:

Format Mask

Displayed Value

"Today's Date is " fmDAY, fmMONTH DDTH

Today's Date is Tuesday, March 16TH

Text item format mask symbols for DATE and DATETIME values Examples

Example

The following table shows examples of format masks for DATE and DATETIME values:

Format Mask

Data Type

Result

MM/DD/YYYY

DATE

03/15/1995

MONTH 15 YYYY

DATE

MARCH 15 1995

fmMONTH 15 1995

DATE

MARCH 15 1995

Day, "the" DDTH "of" fmMonth

DATE

Wednesday, the 15TH of March

J

DATE

2449792

HH:MI PM

TIME

10:30 PM

HH24:MI

TIME

20:30

MM-DD-YY HH:MI AM

DATETIME

03-15-95 06:30 AM

fmMM-DD-YY fmHH:MI AM

DATETIME

3-15-95 06:30 AM

fmMonth YY

DATETIME

March 95


About formatting text item values with format masks

Assigning a format mask to a text item

Text item format mask symbols for NUMBER values

Format Mask property