Date and time patterns

Dates and times in a template originating from a date field in a record set can be displayed using a custom pattern. In the Script Editor, the pattern can be passed to a date, dateTime or Time function of the formatter; see formatter.

The custom pattern may consist of pattern letters (see below), for example: "MM/dd/yyyy". The components can be separated with a space or a symbol, e.g. ., /, -. Text must be put in quotes.

The repetition of pattern letters determines the exact presentation. For example, if the number of pattern letters for a month is less than 3 (M or MM), the month is displayed as a number. If the number of pattern letters is 3 (MMM), it will be displayed as text; if available, a short or abbreviated form of the month's name will be used. If the number of pattern letters is 4 or more (MMMM), the month's full name is displayed.

Note: The pattern letters and patterns on this page are only suitable for displaying dates and times in templates.

Pattern characters

Letter	Component	Presentation	Examples
G	Era designator	Text	AD
y	Year	Year	1996; 96
Y	Week year	Year	2009; 09
M	Month in year	Month	July; Jul; 07
w	Week in year	Number	27
W	Week in month	Number	2
D	Day in year	Number	189
d	Day in month	Number	10
F	Day of week in month	Number	2
E	Day name in week	Text	Tuesday; Tue
u	Day number of week (1 = Monday, ..., 7 = Sunday)	Number	1
a	Am/pm marker	Text	PM
H	Hour in day (0-23)	Number	0
k	Hour in day (1-24)	Number	24
K	Hour in am/pm (0-11)	Number	0
h	Hour in am/pm (1-12)	Number	12
m	Minute in hour	Number	30
s	Second in minute	Number	55
S	Millisecond	Number	978
z	Time zone	General time zone	Pacific Standard Time; PST; GMT-08:00
Z	Time zone	RFC 822 time zone	-0800
X	Time zone	ISO 8601 time zone	-08; -0800; -08:00

Note: These date and time pattern letters and patterns conform to standard Java notation. For more information, see http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html.