If you have worked with time/date formatting in other languages you might have noticed that the other languages use special placeholders for time/date formatting. For eg ruby language uses
- %d for day
- %Y for year
etc
In Golang date and time format placeholders look like date and time only. Refer to below placeholder table
| Type | Placeholder |
| Day | 2 or 02 or _2 |
| Day of Week | Monday or Mon |
| Month | 01 or 1 or Jan or January |
| Year | 2006 or 06 |
| Hour | 03 or 3 or 15 |
| Minutes | 04 or 4 |
| Seconds | 05 or 5 |
| MilliSeconds (ms) | .000 //Trailing zero will be included or .999 //Trailing zero will be omitted |
| Micro Seconds (μs) | .000000 //Trailing zero will be included or .999999 //Trailing zero will be omitted |
| Nano Seconds (ns) | .000000000 //Trailing zero will be included or .999999999 //Trailing zero will be omitted |
| am/pm | PM or pm |
| Timezone | MST |
| Timezone offset | Z0700 or Z070000 or Z07 or Z07:00 or Z07:00:00 or -0700 or -070000 or -07 or -07:00 or -07:00:00 |
It is easy to remember the above placeholders when represented in sequence.
Weekday-Month-Day-Hour-Min-Seconds-Year-Timezone will be Mon-01-02-03-04-05-06–07
Let’s see some time format code examples
package main
import (
"fmt"
"time"
)
func main() {
now := time.Now()
//Format YYYY-MM-DD
fmt.Printf("YYYY-MM-DD: %s\n", now.Format("2006-01-02"))
//Format YY-MM-DD
fmt.Printf("YY-MM-DD: %s\n", now.Format("06-01-02"))
//Format YYYY-#{MonthName}-DD
fmt.Printf("YYYY-#{MonthName}-DD: %s\n", now.Format("2006-Jan-02"))
//Format HH:MM:SS
fmt.Printf("HH:MM:SS: %s\n", now.Format("03:04:05"))
//Format HH:MM:SS Millisecond
fmt.Printf("HH:MM:SS Millisecond: %s\n", now.Format("03:04:05 .999"))
//Format YYYY-#{MonthName}-DD WeekDay HH:MM:SS
fmt.Printf("YYYY-#{MonthName}-DD WeekDay HH:MM:SS: %s\n", now.Format("2006-Jan-02 Monday 03:04:05"))
//Format YYYY-#{MonthName}-DD WeekDay HH:MM:SS PM Timezone TimezoneOffset
fmt.Printf("YYYY-#{MonthName}-DD WeekDay HH:MM:SS PM Timezone TimezoneOffset: %s\n", now.Format("2006-Jan-02 Monday 03:04:05 PM MST -07:00"))
}Output:
YYYY-MM-DD: 2023-01-25
YY-MM-DD: 20-01-25
YYYY-#{MonthName}-DD: 2023-Jan-25
HH:MM:SS: 11:14:16
HH:MM:SS Millisecond: 11:14:16 .213
YYYY-#{MonthName}-DD WeekDay HH:MM:SS: 2023-Jan-25 Saturday 11:14:16
YYYY-#{MonthName}-DD WeekDay HH:MM:SS PM Timezone TimezoneOffset: 2023-Jan-25 Saturday 11:14:16 PM IST +05:30