Defining a custom date-and-time format

You can define a custom date-and-time format using special symbols to construct a format pattern. Use custom date formatting only for reports that are viewed in a single locale. Custom formats always display dates in the format you set. This format can be inappropriate for other locales. For example, if you use the format MM-dd-yy, the date January 10, 2006, always appears as 01-10-06, regardless of the locale in which the report is viewed. For locales in which dates customarily appear in day-month-year format, the date 01-10-06 is interpreted as October 1, 2006.

Table 2-3 lists the specials symbols used to define custom date-and-time formats.

Table 2-3

Symbols for defining custom date-and-time formats

Symbol	Description	Example
yy	Short year	08
yyyy	Long year	2008
MM	Month as a number	07
MMM	Short month name	Jul
MMMM	Full month name	July
d	Day in month	10
W	Week in month	2
w	Week in year	28
DD	Day in year	192
E	Short day of week	Thu
EEEE	Long day of week	Thursday
H	Hour in day (0 - 23)	0
k	Hour in day (1 - 24)	24
K	Hour in AM/PM (0 - 11)	0
h	Hour in AM/PM (1 - 12)	12
mm	Minutes	30
ss	Seconds	55
a	AM or PM	8:00:00AM

Table 2-4 shows examples of custom formats and their effects on a date that is stored as April 15, 2006 12:15:30 PM.

Table 2-4

Examples of custom date-and-time formats

Format pattern	Result of formatting
MM-dd-yy	04-15-06
E, M/d/yyyy	Fri, 4/15/2006
MMM d	Apr 15
MMMM	April
yyyy	2006
W	3 (the week in the month)
w	15 (the week in the year)
DD	105 (the day in the year)
h:mm:ss	12:15:30

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