DateTimeToLocalizedString function

Syntax

DateTimeToLocalizedString({datetime | date}, [Pattern])

Description

Use the DateTimeToLocalizedString function to convert either datetime or date to a localized string. You can also specify a particular pattern to convert datetime or date to.

The Pattern is optional. Only specify Pattern if necessary.

If you need to change the pattern for each language, change the first message in Message Catalog set number 138. This is a format for each language.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
datetime | date	Specify either the DateTime or Date value that you want to convert.
Pattern	Specify the pattern you want to the localized DateTime or Date value to be converted to.

Returns

A string.

Example

REM**************************************************************; 
Function ConvertDateToDTTM(&Date As date) Returns DateTime ; 
REM ***********************************************************; 
   &String = DateTimeToLocalizedString(&Date, "M/d/y"); 
   &String = &String | " 00:00:00.000000"; 
   &DateTime = DateTimeValue(&String); 
   Return &DateTime; 
End-Function;

Using the Pattern Parameter

Pattern takes a string value, and indicates how you want the DateTime or Date value converted.

The valid values for Pattern are as follows.

Note:

The values for pattern are case-sensitive. For example, if you specify a lowercase m, you get minutes, while an uppercase M displays the month.

Symbol	Definition	Type	Example
G	Era designator	Text	AD
y	Year	Number	1996
M	Month in year	Text&Number	July&07
d	Day in month	Number	10
h	Hour in am/pm	Number (1-12)	12
H	Hour in day	Number (0-23)	0
m	Minute in hour	Number	30
s	Second in minute	Number	55
S	Millisecond	Number	978
E	Day in week	Text	Tuesday
a	am/pm marker	Text	PM
k	Hour in day	Number (1-24)	24
K	Hour in am/pm	Number (0-11)	0
'	Escape for text	Delimiter
''	Single quote	Literal	'

The number of pattern letters determine the format.

Type	Pattern Format
Text	If 4 or more pattern letters are used, the full form is used. If less than 4 pattern letters are used, the short or abbreviated form is used if one exists.
Number	Use the minimum number of digits. Shorter numbers are zero-padded to this amount. The year is handled specially; that is, if the count of 'y' is 2, the year is truncated to 2 digits.
Text&Number	If 3 or more pattern letters are used, text is used, otherwise, a number is used.

Any characters in Pattern are not in the ranges of ['a'..'z'] and ['A'..'Z'] are treated as quoted text. For instance, characters like ':', '.', ' ', '#' and '@' appear in the resulting string even they're not within single quotes.

A pattern containing any invalid pattern letter results in a runtime error.

Examples using a United States locale:

Pattern	Result
"yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' hh:mm:ss"	1996.07.10 AD at 15:08:56
"EEE, MMM d, ''yy"	Wed, July 10, '96
"h:mm a"	12:08 PM
"hh 'o''clock' a"	12 o'clock PM
"K:mm a"	0:00 PM
"yyyyy.MMMMM.dd GGG hh:mm aaa"	1996.July.10 AD 12:08 PM