DateTime field
A date/time field allows users to enter times and dates.
Default Value: The default date value. The default date format can be relative to today’s date in +-format (for example, today defaults to today’s date, today+1 is tomorrow, today-1 is yesterday.)
Format: Specify the desired format for this field. A valid format is composed of the following pattern letters.
| Letter | Date or Time | Presentation | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| G | Era designator | Text | AD |
| y | Year | Year | 1996; 96 |
| 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 in week | Text | Tuesday: Tue |
| 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 |
Letters that are not quoted, 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 display date. Please refer to the examples below.
Pattern letters are usually repeated, as their number determines the exact final display, depending on the type of presentation we have:
- Text
- 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.
- Number
- The number of pattern letters is the minimum number of digits, and shorter numbers are zero-padded to this amount.
- Year
- If the number of pattern letters is 2, the year is truncated to 2 digits; otherwise it is interpreted as a number.
- Month
- If the number of pattern letters is 3 or more, the month is interpreted as text; otherwise, it is interpreted as a number.
- General time zone
- Time zones are interpreted as text if they have names. For time zones representing a GMT offset value, the following syntax is
used:
- GMTOffsetTimeZone:
- GMT Sign Hours : Minutes
- Sign: one of + or -
- Hours: one or two digits (n or nn)
- Minutes: two digits (nn)
- Digit: one of 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
- Hours must be between 0 and 23, and Minutes must be between 00 and 59.
- RFC 822 time zone: For formatting, the RFC 822 4-digit time zone format is used:
- RFC822TimeZone: Sign TwoDigitHours Minutes
- TwoDigitHours: two digits (nn)
- TwoDigitHours must be between 00 and 23.
Examples
The following examples show how date and time patterns are interpreted if the device is set to English. The given date and time are 2001-07-04 12:08:56 local time in the U.S. PCT zone.
| Date & Time Pattern | 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:mm aaa" | 02001.July.04 AD 12:08 PM |
| "EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z" | Wed, 4 Jul 2001 12:08:56 -0700 |
| "yyMMddHHmmssZ" | 010704120856-0700 |
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