Formatting Dates

Dates can be formatted with a single shortcut character, such as: "G," or a composite of specifiers, such as "HH:mm". If you want to use a single character as a regular specifier and not a shortcut, prefix the string with %. For example: "%m" outputs the unpadded minute instead of the Month+Day.

Table 12-7 Single Character Shortcut Date Formats

Format	Description
t	Short Time "4:05 PM"
T	Long Time "4:05:07 PM"
d	Short Date "3/9/2013"
D	Long Date "Friday, March 09, 2013"
f	Long Date + Short Time "Friday, March 09, 2013 4:05 PM"
F	Long Date + Long Time "Friday, March 09, 2013 4:05:07 PM"
g	Short Date + Short Time "3/9/2013 4:05 PM"
G	Short Date + Long Time "3/9/2013 4:05:07 PM" (default)
m	Month + Day "March 09"
y	Month + Year "March, 2013"
r	RFC 1123 "Fri, 09 Mar 2013 16:05:07 GMT"
s	Sortable Date/Time "2013-03-09T16:05:07"
u	Universal Sortable Date/Time "2013-03-09 16:05:07Z"

Table 12-8 Date Format Specifiers (more than one character)

Format	Description Examples are for 2013-04-05 04:07:09 PM CST
yy	Year "13"
yyyy	Year "2013"
M	Month "4"
MM	Month "04"
MMM	Month "Apr"
MMMM	Month "April"
d	Day "5"
dd	Day "05"
ddd	Day "Sun"
dddd	Day "Sunday"
h	12-Hour "4"
hh	12-Hour "04"
H	24-Hour "16" (if 4 AM "4")
HH	24-Hour "16" (if 4 AM "04")
m	Minute "7"
MM	Minute "07"
s	Seconds "9"
ss	Seconds "09"
f	Fractions of a second (Can be repeated 1-4 times for more precision)
F	Fractions of a second without trailing zeros (Can be repeated 1-4 times)
t	AM or PM designator "P" (blank for 24-hour only cultures)
tt	AM or PM designator "PM" (blank for 24-hour only cultures)
z	GMT offset "-6"
zz	GMT offset "-06"
zzz	GMT offset "-06:00"
:	Time separator (locale-specific)
/	Date separator (locale-specific)
\<char>	Escape character (<char> is treated as literal output), for example: "{0:HH\h}" outputs "16h"
Any other character	Copied to output unchanged