Date Format Masks
.NET Date and Time Format Masks
Standard Format Masks
Specifies general patterns to use for formatting, which will vary based on the culture being used. For example, using the short time character t, the time 2:30:22 am would display for US English as: 2:30
| Character | Description | Example (US English) |
| d | Short date | 1/1/2001 |
| D | Long date | Monday, January 1, 2001 |
| f | Full date and time (long date and short time) | Monday, January 1, 2001 10:30 a |
| F | Full date and time (long date and long time) | Monday, January 1, 2001 10:30:22 am |
| g | General date (short date and short time) | 1/1/2001 10:30 a |
| G | General date (short date and long time) | 1/1/2001 10:30:22 a |
| m,M | Month and day | January, 1 |
| r,R | RFC 1123 specification | Mon, 1 JAN 2001 10:30:22 GMT |
| t | Short time | 10:30 a |
| T | Long time | 10:30:22 am |
| y,Y | Year month | January 2001 |
Custom Format Masks
Individual patterns used to build custom format masks that are independent of culture.
| Pattern | Description | Example (US English) |
| d | The day of the month. Single-digit days will not have a leading zero. | 1 |
| dd | The day of the month. Single-digit days will have a leading zero. | 01 |
| ddd | The abbreviated name of the day of the week. | MON |
| dddd | The full name of the day of the week. | Monday |
| M | The numeric month. Single-digit months will not have a leading zero. | 1 |
| MM | The numeric month. Single-digit months will have a leading zero. | 01 |
| MMM | The abbreviated name of the month. | JAN |
| MMMM | The full name of the month. | January |
| y | The year without the century. If the year without the century is less than 10, the year is displayed with no leading zero. |
1 |
| yy | The year without the century. If the year without the century is less than 10, the year is displayed with a leading zero. |
01 |
| yyyy | The year in four digits, including the century. | 2001 |
| h | The hour in a 12-hour clock. Single-digit hours will not have a leading zero. | 1 |
| hh | The hour in a 12-hour clock. Single-digit hours will have a leading zero. | 01 |
| H | The hour in a 24-hour clock. Single-digit hours will not have a leading zero. | 1 |
| HH | The hour in a 24-hour clock. Single-digit hours will have a leading zero. | 01 |
| m | The minute. Single-digit minutes will not have a leading zero. | 1 |
| mm | The minute. Single-digit minutes will have a leading zero. | 01 |
| s | The second. Single-digit seconds will not have a leading zero. | 1 |
| ss | The second. Single-digit seconds will have a leading zero. | 01 |
| f | The fraction of a second in single-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 1 |
| ff | The fraction of a second in double-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 11 |
| fff | The fraction of a second in three-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 111 |
| ffff | The fraction of a second in four-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 1111 |
| fffff | The fraction of a second in five-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 11111 |
| ffffff | The fraction of a second in six-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 111111 |
| fffffff | The fraction of a second in seven-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 1111111 |
| t | The first character in the AM/PM designator. | p |
| tt | The AM/PM designator. | pm |
| z | The GMT time zone offset ("+" or "-" followed by the hour only). Single-digit hours will not have a leading zero. |
Pacific Standard Time is "-8" |
| zz | The GMT time zone offset ("+" or "-" followed by the hour only). Single-digit hours will have a leading zero. |
Pacific Standard Time is "-08". |
| zzz | The full GMT time zone offset ("+" or "-" followed by the hour and minutes). Singledigit hours and minutes will have leading zeros. |
Pacific Standard Time is "-08:00". |
| : | The default time separator defined for the culture. | : |
| / | The default date separator defined for the culture. | / |
| \c | Where c is any character. Displays the character literally. To display the backslash character, use "\\". |
\\ |