DateTimeFormat

Class Overview

Factory that creates instances of DateTimeFormatter from patterns and styles.

Datetime formatting is performed by the DateTimeFormatter class. Three classes provide factory methods to create formatters, and this is one. The others are ISODateTimeFormat and DateTimeFormatterBuilder.

This class provides two types of factory:

• Pattern provides a DateTimeFormatter based on a pattern string that is mostly compatible with the JDK date patterns.
• Style provides a DateTimeFormatter based on a two character style, representing short, medium, long and full.

For example, to use a patterm:

 DateTime dt = new DateTime();
 DateTimeFormatter fmt = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("MMMM, yyyy");
 String str = fmt.print(dt);
 

The pattern syntax is mostly compatible with java.text.SimpleDateFormat - time zone names cannot be parsed and a few more symbols are supported. All ASCII letters are reserved as pattern letters, which are defined as follows:

 Symbol  Meaning                      Presentation  Examples
 ------  -------                      ------------  -------
 G       era                          text          AD
 C       century of era (>=0)         number        20
 Y       year of era (>=0)            year          1996

 x       weekyear                     year          1996
 w       week of weekyear             number        27
 e       day of week                  number        2
 E       day of week                  text          Tuesday; Tue

 y       year                         year          1996
 D       day of year                  number        189
 M       month of year                month         July; Jul; 07
 d       day of month                 number        10

 a       halfday of day               text          PM
 K       hour of halfday (0~11)       number        0
 h       clockhour of halfday (1~12)  number        12

 H       hour of day (0~23)           number        0
 k       clockhour of day (1~24)      number        24
 m       minute of hour               number        30
 s       second of minute             number        55
 S       fraction of second           number        978

 z       time zone                    text          Pacific Standard Time; PST
 Z       time zone offset/id          zone          -0800; -08:00; America/Los_Angeles

 '       escape for text              delimiter
 ''      single quote                 literal       '
 

The count of pattern letters determine the format.

Text: 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: The minimum number of digits. Shorter numbers are zero-padded to this amount.

Year: Numeric presentation for year and weekyear fields are handled specially. For example, if the count of 'y' is 2, the year will be displayed as the zero-based year of the century, which is two digits.

Month: 3 or over, use text, otherwise use number.

Zone: 'Z' outputs offset without a colon, 'ZZ' outputs the offset with a colon, 'ZZZ' or more outputs the zone id.

Zone names: Time zone names ('z') cannot be parsed.

Any characters in the pattern that are not in the ranges of ['a'..'z'] and ['A'..'Z'] will be treated as quoted text. For instance, characters like ':', '.', ' ', '#' and '?' will appear in the resulting time text even they are not embraced within single quotes.

DateTimeFormat is thread-safe and immutable, and the formatters it returns are as well.

Summary

Protected Constructors
	DateTimeFormat() Constructor.

Public Methods
static DateTimeFormatter	forPattern(String pattern) Factory to create a formatter from a pattern string.
static DateTimeFormatter	forStyle(String style) Factory to create a format from a two character style pattern.
static DateTimeFormatter	fullDate() Creates a format that outputs a full date format.
static DateTimeFormatter	fullDateTime() Creates a format that outputs a full datetime format.
static DateTimeFormatter	fullTime() Creates a format that outputs a full time format.
static DateTimeFormatter	longDate() Creates a format that outputs a long date format.
static DateTimeFormatter	longDateTime() Creates a format that outputs a long datetime format.
static DateTimeFormatter	longTime() Creates a format that outputs a long time format.
static DateTimeFormatter	mediumDate() Creates a format that outputs a medium date format.
static DateTimeFormatter	mediumDateTime() Creates a format that outputs a medium datetime format.
static DateTimeFormatter	mediumTime() Creates a format that outputs a medium time format.
static String	patternForStyle(String style, Locale locale) Returns the pattern used by a particular style and locale.
static DateTimeFormatter	shortDate() Creates a format that outputs a short date format.
static DateTimeFormatter	shortDateTime() Creates a format that outputs a short datetime format.
static DateTimeFormatter	shortTime() Creates a format that outputs a short time format.

[Expand] Inherited Methods
From class java.lang.Object Object clone() boolean equals(Object arg0) void finalize() final Class<?> getClass() int hashCode() final void notify() final void notifyAll() String toString() final void wait() final void wait(long arg0, int arg1) final void wait(long arg0)

 DateTimeFormat.forPattern(pattern).withLocale(Locale.FRANCE).print(dt);
 

 DateTimeFormat.forStyle(style).withLocale(Locale.FRANCE).print(dt);