Format date and time value

In this chapter you will learn:

What specifiers to use to format time and date
How to show month by name and number
How to display standard 12-hour time format
How to display complete time and date information
How to just display hour and minute
How to display day of month as a decimal

Specifiers for formatting time and date

%t formats time and date information.

%t specifier requires the use of a suffix to describe the portion and precise format of the time or date desired.

The time and date suffixes are shown in the following table.

Suffix	Replaced By
a	Abbreviated weekday name
A	Full weekday name
b	Abbreviated month name
B	Full month name
c	Standard date and time string formatted as day month date hh::mm:ss tzone year
C	First two digits of year
d	Day of month as a decimal (01-31)
D	month/day/year
e	Day of month as a decimal (1-31)
F	year-month-day
h	Abbreviated month name
H	Hour (00 to 23)
I	Hour (01 to 12)
j	Day of year as a decimal (001 to 366)
k	Hour (0 to 23)
l	Hour (1 to 12)
L	Millisecond (000 to 999)
m	Month as decimal (01 to 13)
M	Minute as decimal (00 to 59)
N	Nanosecond (000000000 to 999999999)
p	Locale's equivalent of AM or PM in lowercase
Q	Milliseconds from 1/1/1970
r	hh:mm:ss (12-hour format)
R	hh:mm (24-hour format)
S	Seconds (00 to 60)
s	Seconds from 1/1/1970 UTC
T	hh:mm:ss (24-hour format)
y	Year in decimal without century (00 to 99)
Y	Year in decimal including century (0001 to 9999)
z	Offset from UTC
Z	Time zone name

To display minutes, you would use %tM, and M indicates minutes in a two-character field.

The argument corresponding to the %t specifier must be of type Calendar, Date, Long, or long.

Display month by name and number

The following code shows how to use format('%tB %tb %tm', cal, cal, cal) to display month name and month number.

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Formatter;
/*j  a v a2 s  .  c o  m*/
public class MainClass {
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    Formatter fmt = new Formatter();
    Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();

    // Display month by name and number. 
    fmt = new Formatter(); 
    fmt.format("%tB %tb %tm", cal, cal, cal); 
    System.out.println(fmt); 
  }
}

The output:

Display standard 12-hour time format

The following code displays standard 12-hour time format.

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Formatter;
/*from   j a  va2  s.c  o  m*/
public class Main {
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    Formatter fmt = new Formatter();
    Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
    // Display standard 12-hour time format.
    fmt.format("%tr", cal);
    System.out.println(fmt);//
  }
}

The output:

Display complete time and date information

The following code uses the %tc to display time and date information in a complete form.

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Formatter;
//  ja  v a 2 s . co  m
public class Main {
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    Formatter fmt = new Formatter();
    Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
    // Display complete time and date information.
    fmt = new Formatter();
    fmt.format("%tc", cal);
    System.out.println(fmt);
  }
}

The output:

Display just hour and minute

The following code only shows the hour and minute information.

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Formatter;
//java2s. co m
public class Main {
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    Formatter fmt = new Formatter();
    Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
    // Display just hour and minute.
    fmt = new Formatter();
    fmt.format("%tl:%tM", cal, cal);
    System.out.println(fmt);
  }
}

The output:

Display Day of month as a decimal

The following code displays day of month as a decimal.

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Formatter;
/*  ja v a2 s.co m*/
public class MainClass {
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    Formatter fmt = new Formatter();
    Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();

    fmt.format("Today is day %te of %<tB, %<tY", cal);
    System.out.println(fmt);
  }
}