- The date format expresses a date and time value as a string of the form YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssXHH:ZZ, where
- YYYY is a four-digit integer representing the year. This should be a four-digit number such as
2011
.
- MM is a two-digit integer representing the month, with a range of values of 01–12. The value
1
represents January, and so on.
- DD is a two-digit integer representing the day of the month, with a range of values of 01–31.
- hh is a two-digit integer representing the hour on a 24-hour clock, with a range of values of 00–23.
- mm is a two-digit integer representing the minute, with a range of 00–59.
- ss is a two-digit integer representing the second, with a range of 0–59.
- X is the the sign of the time zone offset, either
+
or -
.
- HH is a two-digit integer representing the hour of the time zone offset, with a range of 00–23.
- ZZ is a two-digit integer representing the minutes of the time zone offset, with a range of 00–59.
In the string format above, it is important not to forget the literal character T
in the string. Here is an example date/time string: 1997-07-16T19:20:30+01:00
, which would represent July 16, 1997, at 19:20:30 in Central European Time (which is UTC +1:00).