Formats time according to the directives in the given format string.
The directives begin with a percent (%) character. Any text not listed as a directive will be passed through to the output string.
The directive consists of a percent (%) character, zero or more flags, optional minimum field width, optional modifier and a conversion specifier as follows:
%<flags><width><modifier><conversion>
Flags:
- don't pad a numerical output _ use spaces for padding 0 use zeros for padding ^ upcase the result string # change case : use colons for %z
The minimum field width specifies the minimum width.
The modifiers are âEâ and âOâ. They are ignored.
Format directives:
Date (Year, Month, Day): %Y - Year with century (can be negative, 4 digits at least) -0001, 0000, 1995, 2009, 14292, etc. %C - year / 100 (rounded down such as 20 in 2009) %y - year % 100 (00..99) %m - Month of the year, zero-padded (01..12) %_m blank-padded ( 1..12) %-m no-padded (1..12) %B - The full month name (``January'') %^B uppercased (``JANUARY'') %b - The abbreviated month name (``Jan'') %^b uppercased (``JAN'') %h - Equivalent to %b %d - Day of the month, zero-padded (01..31) %-d no-padded (1..31) %e - Day of the month, blank-padded ( 1..31) %j - Day of the year (001..366) Time (Hour, Minute, Second, Subsecond): %H - Hour of the day, 24-hour clock, zero-padded (00..23) %k - Hour of the day, 24-hour clock, blank-padded ( 0..23) %I - Hour of the day, 12-hour clock, zero-padded (01..12) %l - Hour of the day, 12-hour clock, blank-padded ( 1..12) %P - Meridian indicator, lowercase (``am'' or ``pm'') %p - Meridian indicator, uppercase (``AM'' or ``PM'') %M - Minute of the hour (00..59) %S - Second of the minute (00..60) %L - Millisecond of the second (000..999) %N - Fractional seconds digits, default is 9 digits (nanosecond) %3N milli second (3 digits) %6N micro second (6 digits) %9N nano second (9 digits) %12N pico second (12 digits) %15N femto second (15 digits) %18N atto second (18 digits) %21N zepto second (21 digits) %24N yocto second (24 digits) Time zone: %z - Time zone as hour and minute offset from UTC (e.g. +0900) %:z - hour and minute offset from UTC with a colon (e.g. +09:00) %::z - hour, minute and second offset from UTC (e.g. +09:00:00) %Z - Abbreviated time zone name or similar information. Weekday: %A - The full weekday name (``Sunday'') %^A uppercased (``SUNDAY'') %a - The abbreviated name (``Sun'') %^a uppercased (``SUN'') %u - Day of the week (Monday is 1, 1..7) %w - Day of the week (Sunday is 0, 0..6) ISO 8601 week-based year and week number: The first week of YYYY starts with a Monday and includes YYYY-01-04. The days in the year before the first week are in the last week of the previous year. %G - The week-based year %g - The last 2 digits of the week-based year (00..99) %V - Week number of the week-based year (01..53) Week number: The first week of YYYY that starts with a Sunday or Monday (according to %U or %W). The days in the year before the first week are in week 0. %U - Week number of the year. The week starts with Sunday. (00..53) %W - Week number of the year. The week starts with Monday. (00..53) Seconds since the Epoch: %s - Number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. Literal string: %n - Newline character (\n) %t - Tab character (\t) %% - Literal ``%'' character Combination: %c - date and time (%a %b %e %T %Y) %D - Date (%m/%d/%y) %F - The ISO 8601 date format (%Y-%m-%d) %v - VMS date (%e-%^b-%4Y) %x - Same as %D %X - Same as %T %r - 12-hour time (%I:%M:%S %p) %R - 24-hour time (%H:%M) %T - 24-hour time (%H:%M:%S)
This method is similar to strftime() function defined in ISO C and POSIX.
While all directives are locale independant since Ruby 1.9 %Z is platform dependant. So, the result may differ even if the same format string is used in other systems such as C.
%z is recommended over %Z. %Z doesn't identify the timezone. For example, âCSTâ is used at America/Chicago (-06:00), America/Havana (-05:00), Asia/Harbin (+08:00), Australia/Darwin (+09:30) and Australia/Adelaide (+10:30). Also, %Z is highly dependent on the operating system. For example, it may generate a non ASCII string on Japanese Windows. i.e. the result can be different to âJSTâ. So the numeric time zone offset, %z, is recommended.
Examples:
t = Time.new(2007,11,19,8,37,48,"-06:00") #=> 2007-11-19 08:37:48 -0600 t.strftime("Printed on %m/%d/%Y") #=> "Printed on 11/19/2007" t.strftime("at %I:%M%p") #=> "at 08:37AM"
Various ISO 8601 formats:
%Y%m%d => 20071119 Calendar date (basic) %F => 2007-11-19 Calendar date (extended) %Y-%m => 2007-11 Calendar date, reduced accuracy, specific month %Y => 2007 Calendar date, reduced accuracy, specific year %C => 20 Calendar date, reduced accuracy, specific century %Y%j => 2007323 Ordinal date (basic) %Y-%j => 2007-323 Ordinal date (extended) %GW%V%u => 2007W471 Week date (basic) %G-W%V-%u => 2007-W47-1 Week date (extended) %GW%V => 2007W47 Week date, reduced accuracy, specific week (basic) %G-W%V => 2007-W47 Week date, reduced accuracy, specific week (extended) %H%M%S => 083748 Local time (basic) %T => 08:37:48 Local time (extended) %H%M => 0837 Local time, reduced accuracy, specific minute (basic) %H:%M => 08:37 Local time, reduced accuracy, specific minute (extended) %H => 08 Local time, reduced accuracy, specific hour %H%M%S,%L => 083748,000 Local time with decimal fraction, comma as decimal sign (basic) %T,%L => 08:37:48,000 Local time with decimal fraction, comma as decimal sign (extended) %H%M%S.%L => 083748.000 Local time with decimal fraction, full stop as decimal sign (basic) %T.%L => 08:37:48.000 Local time with decimal fraction, full stop as decimal sign (extended) %H%M%S%z => 083748-0600 Local time and the difference from UTC (basic) %T%:z => 08:37:48-06:00 Local time and the difference from UTC (extended) %Y%m%dT%H%M%S%z => 20071119T083748-0600 Date and time of day for calendar date (basic) %FT%T%:z => 2007-11-19T08:37:48-06:00 Date and time of day for calendar date (extended) %Y%jT%H%M%S%z => 2007323T083748-0600 Date and time of day for ordinal date (basic) %Y-%jT%T%:z => 2007-323T08:37:48-06:00 Date and time of day for ordinal date (extended) %GW%V%uT%H%M%S%z => 2007W471T083748-0600 Date and time of day for week date (basic) %G-W%V-%uT%T%:z => 2007-W47-1T08:37:48-06:00 Date and time of day for week date (extended) %Y%m%dT%H%M => 20071119T0837 Calendar date and local time (basic) %FT%R => 2007-11-19T08:37 Calendar date and local time (extended) %Y%jT%H%MZ => 2007323T0837Z Ordinal date and UTC of day (basic) %Y-%jT%RZ => 2007-323T08:37Z Ordinal date and UTC of day (extended) %GW%V%uT%H%M%z => 2007W471T0837-0600 Week date and local time and difference from UTC (basic) %G-W%V-%uT%R%:z => 2007-W47-1T08:37-06:00 Week date and local time and difference from UTC (extended)
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