Date and Time Formats

Throughout your 4D projects, you might need to format date and/or time values according to the specificities of the application, the platform, or the interface.

4D includes a comprehensive list of patterns that you can use to create and apply customized date and time formats in your applications, in addition to default formats. Customized format patterns are supported by the following features:

• the String command,
• the OBJECT SET FORMAT and OBJECT Get format commands,
• the date and time format form object properties, available from the Property list or the dateFormat and timeFormat JSON properties.

Pattern list

The following table lists all supported patterns for date and time formats.

Symbol	Meaning	Pattern	Example Output
G	era designator	G, GG, or GGG	AD
		GGGG	Anno Domini
		GGGGG	A
y	year	yy	96
		y or yyyy	1996
Y	year of "Week of Year"	Y	1997
u	extended year	u	4601
Q	quarter	Q	2
		QQ	02
		QQQ	Q2
		QQQQ	2nd quarter
		QQQQQ	2
q	stand-alone quarter	q	2
		qq	02
		qqq	Q2
		qqqq	2nd quarter
		qqqqq	2
M	month in year	M	9
		MM	09
		MMM	Sep
		MMMM	September
		MMMMM	S
L	stand-alone month in year	L	9
		LL	09
		LLL	Sep
		LLLL	September
		LLLLL	S
w	week of year	w	27
		ww	27
d	day in month	d	2
		dd	2
D	day of year	D	189
E	day of week	E, EE, or EEE	Tue
		EEEE	Tuesday
		EEEEE	T
		EEEEEE	Tu
e	local day of week	e	2
		ee	02
		eee	Tue
		eeee	Tuesday
		eeeee	T
		eeeeee	Tu
c	stand-alone local day of week	c or cc	2
		ccc	Tue
		cccc	Tuesday
		ccccc	T
		cccccc	Tu
a	AM or PM	a, aa, or aaa	PM [abbrev]
		aaaa	PM [wide]
		aaaaa	p
b	AM, PM, noon, midnight	b, bb, or bbb	mid.
		bbbb	midnight
		bbbbb	md
B	flexible day periods	B, BB, or BBB	at night [abbrev]
		BBBB	at night [wide]
		BBBBB	at night [narrow]
h	hour in am/pm (1~12)	h	7
		hh	07
H	hour in day (0~23)	H	0
		HH	00
K	hour in am/pm (0~11)	K	0
		KK	00
k	hour in day (1~24)	k	24
		kk	24
m	minute in hour	m	4
		mm	04
s	second in minute	s	5
		ss	05
X	Time Zone: ISO8601 basic hm?, with Z for 0	X	-08, +0530, Z
	Time Zone: ISO8601 basic hm, with Z	XX	-0800, Z
	Time Zone: ISO8601 extended hm, with Z	XXX	-08:00, Z
	Time Zone: ISO8601 basic hms?, with Z	XXXX	-0800, -075258, Z
	Time Zone: ISO8601 extended hms?, with Z	XXXXX	-08:00, -07:52:58, Z
x	Time Zone: ISO8601 basic hm?, without Z for 0	x	-08, +0530
	Time Zone: ISO8601 basic hm, without Z	xx	-800
	Time Zone: ISO8601 extended hm, without Z	xxx	-08:00
	Time Zone: ISO8601 basic hms?, without Z	xxxx	-0800, -075258
	Time Zone: ISO8601 extended hms?, without Z	xxxxx	-08:00, -07:52:58
O	Time Zone: short localized GMT	O	GMT-8
	Time Zone: long localized GMT (=ZZZZ)	OOOO	GMT-08:00
z	Time Zone: specific non-location	z, zz, or zzz	-0800
		zzzz	GMT-08:00
		zzzzz	-08:00, -07:52:58, Z
'	escape for text	'	'
' '	two single quotes produce one	' '	' '

Exploring patterns

y vs Y

y is the calendar year, while Y is the year based on the week number. For example, if the first days of January 2010 are not week #1, then y = 2010 but Y = 2009 (until the date where the 1st week of 2010 begins).

L (stand-alone) vs M

In some languages (Russian, Slovak), the month used alone is different from the month in a date. In "January 10, 2010", "January" is not spelled the same as in "rendez-vous in January".

e vs c

Same remark as for L and M: c is for a day used alone "every tuesday") and e is for a day in a date ("Tuesday January 15, 1951").

E vs e

e is based on system settings: if the week is defined in the system as starting on a Wednesday, then Wednesday will have the numerical value "1" (or zero) whereas "E" always returns the same value (from 1 to 7 or from 0 to 6).

Leading zeros

In general, when the number of letters in the formatting string is higher than the expected number, leading zeros are added. Ex: "yyyyyy" would give "001996".

Localized parts

Some parts of the outputs, such as "midnight" or "Tuesday" are localized, according to regional settings.

For example, for the time 13:25:34, "B" will display in the afternoon on an US system, and après-midi on a French system.

Extra letters

Formatting strings can contain characters not to be interpreted as formatting characters: if they are between "a" and "z" or "A" and "Z", they must be enclosed in single quotes.

For example:

"15:30:00" with pattern "HH 'hours and' mm 'minutes'" produces "15 hours and 30 minutes".

Starting and ending spaces

Starting and ending spaces in patterns are automatically trimmed in outputs. If you want to add spaces before or after the resulting string, you must enclose them in single quotes.

For example:

" HH : mm : ss " ---> "09 : 10 : 25" "' 'HH : mm : ss' '" ---> " 09 : 10 : 25 "

Examples

Date or time	Pattern	Result	Comments
15/06/2000	"QQQQ"	"2nd quarter"	localized
17/03/2001	"D"	"76"	76th day of the year
17/03/1954	"w"	"11"	11th week of the year
17/03/1954	"eeee"	"Wednesday"	localized
15:00:00	"a"	"PM"
18:00:00	"K a"	"6 PM"
13:30:15	"hh:mm aa O"	"01:30 PM GMT+1"

See also

See this blogpost for more information on the custom date and time formats.