Text Product Creation User Guide

Time Display Formats

The display format for the time period in text or period labels for Simple Tabular products may be specified in the product Definition as "timePeriodFormat" or "periodLabelFormat", respectively. Also, Smart Text products have access to various TimeDescriptor methods such as "getCurrentTime" which use the same "formatting entries" shown below. The general form is a tuple containing the following:

(LTorZulu, durationFormat, startFormat, endFormat)

If LTorZulu is set to "LT", the time period will be reported in local time instead of GMT. By setting a format string to "", that value is not output. The formatting entries consist of a keyword prefixed with an '%'. The software will substitute the appropriate value in place of the %keyword in the format string. To add extra characters, such as spaces or some text (e.g., "to"), simply add those characters to the format. For example, this timePeriodFormat:

"timePeriodFormat": ("LT", "%H hours ", "%a %b %d, %Y %I:%M %p", " to %a %b %d, %Y %I:%M %p %Z"),

will yield a time period display such as:

12 hours Mon Apr 23, 2001 06:00 AM to Mon Apr 23, 2001 06:00 PM MDT.

Formatting Entries: The following list specifies the acceptable formatting entries that are allowed:

        %a        Locale's abbreviated weekday name.
        %A        Locale's full weekday name.
        %b        Locale's abbreviated month name.
        %B        Locale's full month name.
        %c        Locale's appropriate date and time representation.
        %C        The century number (the year divided by 100 and truncated to an integer) as a decimal number [00-99].
        %d        Day of the month as a decimal number [01,31].
        %D        Equivalent to the directive string %m/%d/%y.
        %e        Day of the month as a decimal number [1,31]; a single
                     digit is preceded by a space.
        %h        Equivalent to %b.
        %H        Hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number [00,23].
        %I        Hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number [01,12].
        %j        Day of the year as a decimal number [001,366].
        %m        Month as a decimal number [01,12].
        %M        Minute as a decimal number [00,59].
        %n        The New-line character.
        %p        Locale's equivalent of either AM or PM.
        %r        The time in AM and PM notation; in the POSIX locale this is equivalent to %I:%M:%S %p.
        %R        The time in 24 hour notation (%H:%M).
        %S        Second as a decimal number [00,61].
        %t        The Tab character.
        %T        The time in hours, minutes, and seconds (%H:%M:%S).
        %u        The weekday as a decimal number [1(Monday),7].
        %U        Week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]. All days in a new year preceding the
                        first Sunday are considered to be in week 0.
        %V        The week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [01,53]. If the week containing January
                        1st has four or more days in the new year, then it is considered week 1; otherwise, it is week 53 of the previous year, and the next week is week 1.
        %w        Weekday as a decimal number [0(Sunday),6].
        %W        Week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]. All days in a new year preceding
                        the first Monday are considered to be in week 0.
        %x        Locale's appropriate date representation.
        %X        Locale's appropriate time representation.
        %y        Year without century as a decimal number [00,99].
        %Y        Year with century as a decimal number.
        %Z        Time zone name (or by no characters if no time zone exists).
        %%        The percent (%) character.