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Version: 23.3

SenseTalk Date and Time Formats

In SenseTalk, date/time values are displayed in a wide variety of formats. These formats are specified using format strings. SenseTalk's date and time format strings are used by the formattedTime function, in the timeFormat global property and the timeInputFormat global property, and in a variable's format property.

SenseTalk accepts and supports three different methods of defining a date/time format:

  • Bracket style: Tokens enclosed in square brackets, [ and ].
    Examples: [year], [weekday]
    This style is the most readable and so is usually preferred. The bracket style is used in all of SenseTalk's built-in formats, such as those in the timeFormat and the timeInputFormat global properties.
  • Percent style: Tokens identified by the percent character, %.
    Examples: %Y, %A
    Note that this style is used by the strftime function in other programming languages such as C, Python, and PHP.
  • Unicode style: Tokens as defined by the ICU standard.
    Examples: yyyy, EEEE
    These date/time formats are compatible with a wide range of other software that also uses the ICU libraries.

Each of the following examples results in a date in this format: April 8, 2019 10:04:37

  • Bracket format: [month name] [day], [year] [hr]:[mi]:[se]
  • Percent format: %B %e, %Y %H:%M:%S
  • Unicode format: MMMM d, yyyy HH:mm:ss

Any characters you include in a date/time definition string in addition to tokens are treated as literal. In the examples above for each format, spaces, the comma , and colons : are placed between tokens where they need to appear in the formatted date/time sequence.

note

SenseTalk's mechanism for formatting date and time values, and for recognizing dates and times displayed in different configurations (i.e., 1/7/19 or Jan. 7, 2019), relies on the underlying formats established by the International Components for Unicode (ICU) standard (SenseTalk's "Unicode" format). You can learn about this standard in the ICU User Guide.

Date and Time Definitions

The table below shows the specific tokens needed to define each part of a date/time sequence in various formats. The Displays column shows what each token displays for the date: January 7, 2019 2:34:56.01234567 PM

Bracket StylePercent StyleUnicode StyleDisplaysDescription
[year]%Yyyyy2019The full year (4-digit year number)
[yr]%yyy19The last 2 digits of the year (always 2 digits, with leading zero for years 1-9)
[y]%1yy2019The year number (1 or more digits)

(Note: [y] and y might not behave exactly the same as %1y in all cases.)
[long monthName] [monthName] [long month]%BMMMMJanuaryThe full month name
[mon] [abbreviated monthName] [abbrev monthName] [abbr month]%bMMMJanThe abbreviated month name (first 3 characters of the name)
[month] [m]%1mM1The month number (1 or 2 digits)
[short month] [mo] [short monthName]%mMM01The month number (always 2 digits, with leading zero for months 1-9)
[day] [d]%1d

%e
d7The day of the month (1 or 2 digits)
[da]%ddd07The day of the month (always 2 digits, with leading zero for days 1-9)
[era]GADThe abbreviated name of the era (BC or AD)
[eraName]GGGGAnno DominiThe full name of the era
[weekday] [weekday name] [long weekday] [long weekdayName]%AEEEEMondayThe full name of the day of the week
[wkday] [abbr(ev(iated)) weekday] [abbr(ev(iated)) weekdayName]%aEMonThe abbreviated name of the day of the week (first 3 characters)
[short weekday] [short weekdayName]EEEEEEMoThe short abbreviation of the day of the week (first 2 characters)
[dayOfWeek]%we2The number of the day of the week, from 1 to 7. The number 1 represents the local starting day of the week (which can vary depending on system settings). For this example, Sunday is the first day of the week.
[am] [pm]%paPMThe period of the day (AM or PM)
[hour] [hour24]%1HH14The hour of day using a 24-hour clock (from 0 to 23)
[hr] [hr24]%HHH14The hour of day using a 24-hour clock (from 00 to 23, always 2 digits, with leading zero for hours 0-9)
[hour12]%1Ih2The hour of day using a 12-hour clock (from 1 to 12)
[hr12]%Ihh02The hour of day using a 12-hour clock (from 01 to 12, always 2 digits, with leading zero for hours 1-9)
[minute] [min]%1Mm34The minute of the hour (from 0 to 59)
[mi]%Mmm34The minute of the hour (from 00 to 59, always 2 digits, with leading zero for minutes 0-9)
[second] [sec]%1Ss56The second of the minute (from 0 to 59)
[se]%Sss56The second of the minute (from 00 to 59, always 2 digits, with leading zero for seconds 0-9)
[millisecond]%FSSS012The millisecond (thousandth of a second) within the second (from 000 to 999, always 3 digits)
[nanosecond]SSSSSS012346The nanosecond (millionth of a second) within the second (from 000000 to 999999, always 6 digits)
[timeZone]%zZZZ0800The time zone offset from GMT in hours and minutes (±hhmm)
[short timeZone]x08The time zone offset from GMT in hours (and minutes if not zero)
[long TimeZone]ZZZZGMT-08:00Long localized GMT offset in hours and minutes (GMT±hh:mm)
[timeZone ID] [long timeZone ID]%ZVVAmerica/Los AngelesLong time zone identifier
[short timeZone ID]VuslaxShort time zone identifier
[timeZone City]VVVLos AngelesTime zone exemplar city
[timeZoneName]vvvvPacific TimeTime zone generic name
[short timeZoneName]vPTTime zone generic abbreviation
[long timeZoneName]zzzzPacific Standard TimeTime zone specific name
[abbr(ev(iated)) timeZone Name]zPSTTime zone specific abbreviation
[timeZoneISO]XX-0800 or ZThe time zone offset from GMT in hours and minutes (±hhmm) or Z for zero offset
[short timeZoneISO]-08 or ZThe time zone offset from GMT in hours (and minutes if not zero) or Z for zero offset
[long timeZoneISO]-08:00 or ZThe time zone offset from GMT in hours and minutes (±hh:mm) or Z for zero offset
[dayOfYear]%1jD7The day of the year (from 1 to 366)
[dayOfYear3]%jDDD007The day of the year (from 001 to 366, always 3 digits)
[weekYear]YYYY2019The year number in Week of Year* calculations. This is the year used in the ISO year-week calendar as defined by ISO 8601. The value might be different from the calendar year for dates that are within the first or last 3 days of the year.
[weekOfYear]w2The week number within the year (from 1 to 52 or 53)*
[wkOfYear]ww02The week number within the year (from 1 to 52 or 53, always 2 digits, with leading zero for weeks 0-9)*
[weekOfMonth]W2The week number within the month (from 1 to 5)*
[dayOfWeekInMonth]F1The ordinal number of the weekday within the month (from 1 to 5). In this example, the value 1 indicates that January 7, 2019, is the first Monday of the month.*
%cThe complete localized date and time
%xThe localized date
%XThe localized time
['quoted']'quoted'quotedWhen using the bracket style, anything outside of [ ] is always literal, so this is needed only to treat text containing square brackets as literal (extremely rare).

* Week Of Year

Values calculated for the [weekYear], [weekOfYear], or [wkOfYear] fields first determine which week of the year a date falls within, from 1 to 53. Week 1 for a year is the week that contains at least 4 days in that year (or in other words, that contains January 4 of that year).

For example, because January 1 of 2019 fell on a Tuesday, week 1 of that year encompasses the dates from December 30, 2018 (Sunday), through January 5, 2019 (Saturday). Weeks between week 1 of one year and week 1 of the following year are numbered sequentially from 2 to 52 or 53 (if needed). The [weekYear] of December 30 and 31 of 2018 is therefore 2019, not 2018, because those days fall within the first week of 2019.

Values are similarly calculated for [weekOfMonth] and [dayOfWeekInMonth].

note

When using the bracket format, the token names are not case-sensitive, and spaces are ignored. So for example the following are all acceptable and equivalent:
    [short month name]
    [Short MonthName]
    [shortMONTHname]