Predefined Date/Time Formats (Format Function)

The following table identifies the predefined date and time format names. These may be used by name as the style argument for the Format function:

Format Name

Description

General Date, or G

Displays a date and/or time. For example, 3/12/2008 11:07:31 AM. Date display is determined by your application's current culture value.

Long Date, Medium Date, or D

Displays a date according to your current culture's long date format. For example, Wednesday, March 12, 2008.

Short Date, or d

Displays a date using your current culture's short date format. For example, 3/12/2008.

The d character displays the day in a user-defined date format. For more information, see User-Defined Date/Time Formats (Format Function).

Long Time, Medium Time, or T

Displays a time using your current culture's long time format; typically includes hours, minutes, seconds. For example, 11:07:31 AM.

Short Time or t

Displays a time using your current culture's short time format. For example, 11:07 AM.

The t character displays AM or PM values for locales that use a 12-hour clock in a user-defined time format. For more information, see User-Defined Date/Time Formats (Format Function).

f

Displays the long date and short time according to your current culture's format. For example, Wednesday, March 12, 2008 11:07 AM.

F

Displays the long date and long time according to your current culture's format. For example, Wednesday, March 12, 2008 11:07:31 AM.

g

Displays the short date and short time according to your current culture's format. For example, 3/12/2008 11:07 AM.

M, m

Displays the month and the day of a date. For example, March 12.

The M character displays the month in a user-defined date format. The m character displays the minutes in a user-defined time format. For more information, see User-Defined Date/Time Formats (Format Function).

R, r

Formats the date according to the RFC1123Pattern property. For example, Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:07:31 GMT. The formatted date does not adjust the value of the date and time. You must adjust the Date/Time value to GMT before calling the Format function.

s

Formats the date and time as a sortable index. For example, 2008-03-12T11:07:31.

The s character displays the seconds in a user-defined time format. For more information, see User-Defined Date/Time Formats (Format Function).

u

Formats the date and time as a GMT sortable index. For example, 2008-03-12 11:07:31Z.

U

Formats the date and time with the long date and long time as GMT. For example, Wednesday, March 12, 2008 6:07:31 PM.

Y, y

Formats the date as the year and month. For example, March, 2008.

The Y and y characters display the year in a user-defined date format. For more information, see User-Defined Date/Time Formats (Format Function).

For more information about the application's current culture information, see How Culture Affects Strings in Visual Basic.

Requirements

Namespace:Microsoft.VisualBasic

**Module:**Strings

Assembly: Visual Basic Runtime Library (in Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll)

See Also

Reference

String Manipulation Summary

Conversion Summary

Format Function

Predefined Numeric Formats (Format Function)

User-Defined Date/Time Formats (Format Function)

Change History

Date

History

Reason

July 2008

Updated descriptions, added examples, and added links to clarify various format options.

Customer feedback.