Choose your target programming language (Java, PHP, MySQL, Python, JavaScript, or Swift), pick a date/time format style, and get back the exact format string you need plus a ready-to-paste code snippet. Select your date separator, time format, and whether to include time — the generator assembles the correct tokens for your platform automatically.
Format String
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Code Snippet
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Example Date Output
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A date format string is a pattern made up of special tokens that tell a programming language how to parse or display a date and time. For example, 'dd/MM/yyyy' in Java produces '31/12/2024'. Each token corresponds to a date component like day, month, year, hour, or minute.
No — each language or platform uses its own set of tokens. Java's SimpleDateFormat uses 'dd/MM/yyyy', while PHP's date() function uses 'd/m/Y', Python's strftime() uses '%d/%m/%Y', and MySQL's DATE_FORMAT() uses '%d/%m/%Y'. This generator produces the correct tokens automatically for your chosen platform.
In PHP you pass the format string to the date() function: date('d/m/Y', time()). If you have a DateTime object, use $date->format('d/m/Y'). The generated code snippet shows you the exact call to use.
Use SimpleDateFormat in older Java code: new SimpleDateFormat('dd/MM/yyyy').format(new Date()). For modern Java (8+), use DateTimeFormatter: DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern('dd/MM/yyyy').format(LocalDate.now()). The code snippet shows the modern DateTimeFormatter approach.
A 4-digit year (e.g. yyyy / Y / %Y) renders the full year like '2024', while a 2-digit year (yy / y / %y) renders only the last two digits like '24'. 4-digit years are recommended for unambiguous storage and interchange.
Select either 'HH:MM' or 'HH:MM:SS' in the Include Time field, then choose 24-hour or 12-hour format. The generator appends the correct time tokens to your date format string and shows a combined example like '31/12/2024 23:59:59'.
For database storage, YYYY-MM-DD (ISO 8601, year-month-day with hyphens) is strongly recommended. It is universally sortable, unambiguous across locales, and required by MySQL's native DATE type. Use locale-specific formats like DD/MM/YYYY only for display purposes.
Yes. Select 'Swift (DateFormatter)' as the platform and the generator produces Unicode CLDR tokens (e.g. dd/MM/yyyy) used by Swift's DateFormatter class. The code snippet shows how to set dateFormatter.dateFormat and format a Date object.