Supported date time patterns

This section illustrates supported date time patterns in HTML templates.

The count of pattern letters determines the format.

• Text: For formatting, 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: For formatting, the number of pattern letters is the minimum number of digits, and shorter numbers are zero-padded to this amount.

• Number/Text: If the count of pattern letters is 3 or greater, use the Text rules above. Otherwise use the Number rules above.

• Fraction: Outputs the nano-of-second field as a fraction-of-second. The nano-of-second value has nine digits, thus the count of pattern letters is from 1 to 9. If it is less than 9, then the nano-of-second value is truncated, with only the most significant digits being output.

• Year: The count of letters determines the minimum field width below which padding is used. If the count of letters is two, then a reduced two-digit form is used.

• ZoneId: This outputs the time-zone ID, such as 'Europe/Paris'. If the count of letters is two, then the time-zone ID is output. Any other count of letters throws IllegalArgumentException.

• 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
  + -
  Hours:
  Digit
  Digit Digit
  Minutes:
  Digit Digit
  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. The format is locale-independent and digits must be taken from the Basic Latin block of the Unicode standard.

• RFC 822 time zone: For formatting, the RFC 822 4-digit time zone format is used:

  RFC822TimeZone:
  Sign TwoDigitHours Minutes
  TwoDigitHours:
  Digit Digit

  TwoDigitHours must be between 00 and 23. Other definitions are as for general time zones.

• ISO 8601 Time zone: The number of pattern letters designates the format for both formatting and parsing as follows:

  ISO8601TimeZone:
  OneLetterISO8601TimeZone
  TwoLetterISO8601TimeZone
  ThreeLetterISO8601TimeZone
  OneLetterISO8601TimeZone:
  Sign TwoDigitHours
  Z
  TwoLetterISO8601TimeZone:
  Sign TwoDigitHours Minutes
  Z
  ThreeLetterISO8601TimeZone:
  Sign TwoDigitHours : Minutes
  Z

  Other definitions are as for general time zones or RFC 822 time zones. For formatting, if the offset value from GMT is 0, "Z" is produced. If the number of pattern letters is 1, any fraction of an hour is ignored. For example, if the pattern is "X" and the time zone is "GMT+05:30", "+05" is produced. If the number of pattern letters is 4 or more, IllegalArgumentException is thrown when constructing a SimpleDateFormat or applying a pattern.