DataPrime: Specifying Timestamp Formats

The DataPrime functions parseTimestamp and formatTimestamp accept a format argument that can be used to specify the format for parsing, respectively printing a timestamp to a string. The syntax is based on the strftime function from programming languages such as Python, C or Rust. It can be any valid string with embedded format specifiers as detailed in the table below. Other parts of the string which are not format specifiers are reproduced verbatim.

Specifier	Example	Meaning
Dates
%Y	2023	Full year since BCE, 4 digits
%G	2023	Week-based full year, 4 digits
%C	20	Century since BCE (first 2 digits of %Y)
%y	23	Short year since BCE (last 2 digits %Y)
%g	23	Week based short year (last 2 digits of %G)
%m	08	Month number (01-12), zero-padded to 2 digits
%B	August	Full month name
%b	Aug	Abbreviated month name, 3 letters
%h	Aug	Alias for %b
%d	07	Day of the month (01-31), zero-padded to 2 digits
%e	7	Alias for %_d (space-padded)
%j	219	Day of the year (001-366), zero-padded to 3 digits
%u	1	Day of the week number, one-based (1-7), ISO 8601
%w	0	Day of the week number, zero-based (0-6)
%A	Monday	Full day of the week
%a	Mon	Abbreviated day of the week, 3 letters
%U	32	Week number starting on Sunday (00-53), zero-padded to 2 digits
%W	32	Week number starting on Monday (00-53), zero-padded to 2 digits
%V	32	Week number according to ISO 8601 (01-53), zero-padded to 2 digits
%D	08/07/23	Alias for %m/%d/%y (”month / day / year”)
%F	2023-08-01	Alias for %Y-%m-%d (”year - month - day”), ISO 8601
%v	7-Aug-2023	Alias for %e-%b-%Y (”day - month - year”)
Time
%H	19	Hours, 24-based (00-23), zero-padded to 2 digits
%k	19	Alias for %_H (space-padded)
%I	07	Hours, 12-based (01-12), zero-padded to 2 digits
%l	7	Alias for %_I (space-padded)
%P	pm	am or pm
%p	PM	AM or PM
%M	06	Minutes (00-59), zero-padded to 2 digits
%S	42	Seconds (00-60), 60 on leap seconds, zero-padded to 2 digits
%f	82259081	Nanoseconds since the last whole second
%3f	082	Milliseconds since the last whole second, zero-padded to 3 digits
%6f	082259	Microseconds since the last whole second, zero-padded to 6 digits
%9f	082259081	Nanoseconds since the last whole second, zero-padded to 9 digits
%.f	.082259081	Fractional part of a second (3, 6 or 9 decimals)
%.3f	.082	Fractional part of a second, 3 decimals (milliseconds)
%.6f	.082259	Fractional part of a second, 6 decimals (microseconds)
%.9f	.082259081	Fractional part of a second, 9 decimals (nanoseconds)
%R	19:06	Alias for %H:%M (”hours : minutes”)
%T	19:06:42	Alias for %H:%M:%S (”hours : minutes : seconds”)
Time Zones
%Z	Europe/Athens	Time zone identifier (only when parsing), IANA
%z	+0300	Offset from UTC in hours and minutes, zero-padded to 4 digits
%:z	+03:00	Offset from UTC in “hours : minutes” format
%::z	+03:00:00	Offset from UTC in “hours : minutes : seconds” format
%:::z	+03	Offset from UTC in hours, zero-padded to 2 digits
Escaping
%t	\t	Literal tab character
%n	\n	Literal new line character
%%	%	Literal percent sign
Modifiers
%-?	%-I → 7	Disables padding
%_?	%_M → 6	Pads with spaces
%0?	%0e → 07	Pads with zeroes

Additional Resources

Documentation

DataPrime Query Language
DataPrime Cheat Sheet
Glossary: DataPrime Operators & Expressions

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