Interface TimeLocaleObject

Returns a new formatter for the given string specifier. The specifier string may contain the following directives:

• %a - abbreviated weekday name.*
• %A - full weekday name.*
• %b - abbreviated month name.*
• %B - full month name.*
• %c - the locale’s date and time, such as %x, %X.*
• %d - zero-padded day of the month as a decimal number [01,31].
• %e - space-padded day of the month as a decimal number [ 1,31]; equivalent to %_d.
• %f - microseconds as a decimal number [000000, 999999].
• %g - ISO 8601 week-based year without century as a decimal number [00,99].
• %G - ISO 8601 week-based year with century as a decimal number.
• %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].
• %L - milliseconds as a decimal number [000, 999].
• %p - either AM or PM.*
• %q - quarter of the year as a decimal number [1,4].
• %Q - milliseconds since UNIX epoch.
• %s - seconds since UNIX epoch.
• %S - second as a decimal number [00,61].
• %u - Monday-based (ISO) weekday as a decimal number [1,7].
• %U - Sunday-based week of the year as a decimal number [00,53].
• %V - ISO 8601 week number of the year as a decimal number [01, 53].
• %w - Sunday-based weekday as a decimal number [0,6].
• %W - Monday-based week of the year as a decimal number [00,53].
• %x - the locale’s date, such as %-m/%-d/%Y.*
• %X - the locale’s time, such as %-I:%M:%S %p.*
• %y - year without century as a decimal number [00,99].
• %Y - year with century as a decimal number.
• %Z - time zone offset, such as -0700, -07:00, -07, or Z.
• %% - a literal percent sign (%).

Directives marked with an asterisk (*) may be affected by the locale definition.

For %U, all days in a new year preceding the first Sunday are considered to be in week 0. For %W, all days in a new year preceding the first Monday are considered to be in week 0. Week numbers are computed using interval.count. For example, 2015-52 and 2016-00 represent Monday, December 28, 2015, while 2015-53 and 2016-01 represent Monday, January 4, 2016. This differs from the ISO week date specification (%V), which uses a more complicated definition!

For %V,%g and %G, per the strftime man page:

In this system, weeks start on a Monday, and are numbered from 01, for the first week, up to 52 or 53, for the last week. Week 1 is the first week where four or more days fall within the new year (or, synonymously, week 01 is: the first week of the year that contains a Thursday; or, the week that has 4 January in it). If the ISO week number belongs to the previous or next year, that year is used instead.

The % sign indicating a directive may be immediately followed by a padding modifier:

1. 0 - zero-padding
2. _ - space-padding
3. • disable padding

If no padding modifier is specified, the default is 0 for all directives except %e, which defaults to _. (In some implementations of strftime and strptime, a directive may include an optional field width or precision; this feature is not yet implemented.)

The returned function formats a specified date, returning the corresponding string.

Returns a new parser for the given string specifier. The specifier string may contain the same directives as locale.format (TimeLocaleObject.format). The %d and %e directives are considered equivalent for parsing.

The returned function parses a specified string, returning the corresponding date or null if the string could not be parsed according to this format’s specifier. Parsing is strict: if the specified string does not exactly match the associated specifier, this method returns null.

For example, if the associated specifier is %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ, then the string "2011-07-01T19:15:28Z" will be parsed as expected, but "2011-07-01T19:15:28", "2011-07-01 19:15:28" and "2011-07-01" will return null. (Note that the literal Z here is different from the time zone offset directive %Z.) If a more flexible parser is desired, try multiple formats sequentially until one returns non-null.

Equivalent to locale.format (TimeLocaleObject.format), except all directives are interpreted as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) rather than local time.

Equivalent to locale.parse (TimeLocaleObject.parse), except all directives are interpreted as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) rather than local time.