strftime

Formats date 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.

A directive consists of a percent (%) character, zero or more flags, an optional minimum field width, an 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 “E” and “O”. 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 (round down.  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..59)

  %L - Millisecond of the second (000..999)
  %N - Fractional seconds digits, default is 9 digits (nanosecond)
          %3N  millisecond (3 digits)   %15N femtosecond (15 digits)
          %6N  microsecond (6 digits)   %18N attosecond  (18 digits)
          %9N  nanosecond  (9 digits)   %21N zeptosecond (21 digits)
          %12N picosecond (12 digits)   %24N yoctosecond (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 - hour, minute and second offset from UTC
                                            (e.g. +09, +09:30, +09:30:30)
  %Z - Time zone abbreviation name or something 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 week 1 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 week 1 of YYYY 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 Unix Epoch:
  %s - Number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC.
  %Q - Number of milliseconds 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-%Y)
  %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)
  %+ - date(1) (%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y)

This method is similar to the strftime() function defined in ISO C and POSIX. Several directives (%a, %A, %b, %B, %c, %p, %r, %x, %X, %E*, %O* and %Z) are locale dependent in the function. However, this method is locale independent. So, the result may differ even if the same format string is used in other systems such as C. It is good practice to avoid %x and %X because there are corresponding locale independent representations, %D and %T.

Examples:

d = DateTime.new(2007,11,19,8,37,48,"-06:00")
                          #=> #<DateTime: 2007-11-19T08:37:48-0600 ...>
d.strftime("Printed on %m/%d/%Y")   #=> "Printed on 11/19/2007"
d.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)

See also strftime(3) and ::strptime.