Format Masks

Date and numeric fields can have format masks entered to define how the data returned for that field is displayed. Format masks are required for date fields. Format masks are case-sensitive. For instance, if you enter M, you indicate Month, and if you enter m you indicate minutes.

Date Format Masks

Symbol	Meaning	Presentation	Example
G	Era Designator	Text	AD
y	Year	Number	1996
M	Month in Year	Text & Number	July & 07
d	Day in Month	Number	10
h	Hour in AM/PM (1-12)	Number	12
H	Hour in Day (0-23)	Number	0
m	Minute in Hour	Number	30
s	Second in Minute	Number	55
S	Millisecond	Number	978
E	Day in Week	Text	Tuesday
D	Day in Year	Number	189
F	Day of Week in Month	Number	2 (2nd Wed in July)
w	Week in Year	Number	27
W	Week in Month	Number	2
a	AM/PM Marker	Text	PM
k	Hour in Day (1-24)	Number	24
K	Hour in AM/PM (0-11)	Number	0
x	Time Zone	Text	Pacific Standard Time
'	Escape for Text	Delimiter
"	Single Quote	Literal	'

The count of pattern letters determine the format.

For Text types, if there are four or more pattern letters, use the full form. If there are less than four pattern letters, use the short or abbreviated form.

For Number types, the minimum number of digits should be entered. If a number is entered that is less than this number of digits, they will be padded with zeros to this amount. For y (Year), if the count of 'y' is 2, the Year will be truncated to 2 digits.

For Text & Number types, if there are three or more pattern letters, use text. If less than three pattern letters are entered, us the number.

Examples:

Format Patten	Result
yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' hh:mm:ss z	1996.07.10 AD at 15:08:56 PDT
EEE, MMM d, ''yy	Wed, July 10, '96
h:mm a	12:08 PM
hh 'o''clock' a, zzzz	12 o'clock PM, Pacific Daylight Time
K:mm a, z	0:00 PM, PST
yyyyy.MMMMM.dd GGG hh:mm aaa	1996.July.10 AD 12:08 PM

Number Format Mask

Number format masks can contain a positive and negative mask, separated by a semi-colon. Zeros and # represent digits that must be present. Commas add thousand separators, while decimals show where the decimal goes. In the following example, negative values will be displayed surrounded by parentheses.

For example: #,##0.00;(#,##0.00). #,##0.00 is the positive display. (#,##0.00) is the negative display.