Appendix E. Date and Time format

Mapping framework uses java.text.SimpleDateFormatclass to work with dates.

Date and time formats are specified by date and time pattern strings. Within date and time pattern strings, unquoted letters from 'A' to 'Z' and from 'a' to 'z' are interpreted as pattern letters representing the components of a date or time string. Text can be quoted using single quotes (') to avoid interpretation. ''represents a single quote. All other characters are not interpreted; they're simply copied into the output string during formatting or matched against the input string during parsing.

The following pattern letters are defined (all other characters from 'A' to 'Z' and from 'a' to 'z' are reserved):

Letter	DateorTimeComponent	Presentation	Examples
G	Eradesignator	Text	AD
y	Year	Year	1996; 96
M	Monthinyear	Month	July; Jul; 07
w	Weekinyear	Number	27
W	Weekinmonth	Number	2
D	Dayinyear	Number	189
d	Dayinmonth	Number	10
F	Day of week in month	Number	2
E	Dayinweek	Text	Tuesday; Tue
a	Am/pmmarker	Text	PM
H	Hourinday (0-23)	Number	0
k	Hourinday (1-24)	Number	24
K	Hourinam/pm (0-11)	Number	0
h	Hourinam/pm (1-12)	Number	12
m	Minuteinhour	Number	30
s	Secondinminute	Number	55
S	Millisecond	Number	978
z	Timezone	Generaltimezone	Pacific Standard Time; PST; GMT-08:00
Z	Timezone	RFC 822 timezone	-0800

Table 42.Letter patterns

Pattern letters are usually repeated, as their number determines the exact presentation:

Text: For formatting, if the number of pattern letters is 4 or more, the full form is used; otherwise a short or abbreviated form is used if available. For parsing, both forms are accepted, independent of the number of pattern letters.
Number: For formatting, the number of pattern letters is the minimum number of digits, and shorter numbers are zero-padded to this amount. For parsing, the number of pattern letters is ignored unless it's needed to separate two adjacent fields.
Year: For formatting, if the number of pattern letters is 2, the year is truncated to 2 digits; otherwise it is interpreted as number.

For parsing, if the number of pattern letters is more than 2, the year is interpreted literally, regardless of the number of digits. So using the pattern "MM/dd/yyyy", "01/11/12" parses to Jan 11, 12 A.D.

The following examples show how date and time patterns are interpreted in the U.S. locale. The given date and time are 2001-07-04 12:08:56 local time in the U.S. Pacific Time time zone.

DateandTimePattern	Result
"yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss z"	2001.07.04 AD at 12:08:56 PDT
"EEE, MMM d, ''yy"	Wed, Jul 4, '01
"h:mm a"	12:08 PM
"hh 'o''clock' a, zzzz"	12 o'clock PM, Pacific Daylight Time
"K:mm a, z"	0:08 PM, PDT
"yyyyy.MMMMM.dd GGG hh:mmaaa"	02001.July.04 AD 12:08 PM
"EEE, dMMMyyyyHH:mm:ssZ"	Wed, 4 Jul 2001 12:08:56 -0700
"yyMMddHHmmssZ"	010704120856-0700

Table 43.Patterns usage examples