Spectre Format Conventions

NOTE: If you want to include letters in the input or output date string, you must put a backslash ("\") in front of the characters. For example, "YYYY-\MMM-DD" parses "2020-M07-20".

Starting with version 7.0(43), Spectre has a new syntax for datetime parsing and formatting. Now, the datetime syntax uses the following format ("MM/DD/YYYY hh:mm:ss") similar to the date syntax. The earlier %-style formatting ("%m/%d/%Y %H:%M:%S") is supported, but is deprecated. Use of the new style is recommended. Spectre automatically detects which style is used and prints a warning for Build scripts that use the earlier style.

A datetime format string is a sequence of tokens, spaces and literal characters. Tokens are CASE-SENSITIVE. This is unlike date format strings, where for instance you can use either "yyyy" or "YYYY". This requirement is necessary to avoid ambiguous tokens (for example, does M mean month or minute) and introducing additional tokens.

Date tokens

Token (must be uppercase)	Meaning	Example Value
Y	Year, full	2018
YY	Year, 2 digits	18
YYYY	Year, full	2018
H	Half year (1 or 2)	1
T	Tertile (1-3)	1
Q	Quarter (1-4)	2
M	Month, 1 or 2 digits	1
MM	Month, zero padded to 2 digits	01
MMM	Month, 3-letter abbreviation	Jan
MMMM	Month, full name	January
MMMMM	Month, 1-letter abbreviation (cannot be used for parsing)	J
D	Day of month, 1 or 2 digits	3
DD	Day of month, zero-padded to 2 digits	03
AAA	Day of week, 3-letter abbreviation	Mon
AAAA	Day of week, full name	Monday
AAAAA	Day of week, 1-letter abbreviation (cannot be used for parsing)	M

NOTE: The modifier G can be placed in front of the Y or M, similar to the date format (for example, GYYYY-GMM). The purpose of that modifier is to force the use of the standard calendar for non-standard period types. Because datetimes do not use non-standard calendars, the modifier has no effect, but it is allowed.

Time tokens

Token (must be lowercase)	Meaning	Example Value
h	Hour (0-23), 1 or 2 digits	3
hh	Hour (0-23), zero-padded to 2 digits	15
i	Hour (1-12), 1 or 2 digits	3
ii	Hour (1-12), zero-padded to 2 digits	01
m	Minute (0-59), 1 or 2 digits	6
mm	Minute (0-59), zero-padded to 2 digits	08
s	Second (0-59), 1 or 2 digits	3
ss	Second (0-59), zero-padded to 2 digits	59
p	AM/PM marker ('A' or 'P'), 1 letter	A
pp	AM/PM marker ('AM' or 'PM'), 2 letters	PM
u	Milliseconds

NOTE:

• When parsing, a space matches any number of spaces in the input string.
• If you want to include letters in the input or output datetime string, you must put a backslash ("\") in front of the characters. For example, "YYYY-\MMM-DD hh:mm:ss" parses "2020-M07-20 15:07:00".
• If you put the format string in a Build script or cPlan calc, use double backslashes for letters (or in some cases quadruple backslashes).
• In addition to letters, other symbols that need backslashes are the left brace ("{') and the backslash itself.
• Other symbols, for example ":", "-", and "/", are treated as literals and do not need backslashes.

*NOTES:

• By default, Diver assigns a numeric of 2 decimal places to numeric cBase fields. If the formatting is set to None, the ProDiver output matches any Spectre formatting defined by the Build script or cPlan.
• The inclusion of thousands separators in Spectre output depends on the use of a locale that supports it, for example, en_US.

NOTE:

• In Spectre builds, format sets both the display and input properties, unless a separate input-format is specified.
• If the format has a blank after the semicolon, or if there is no semicolon, then blank values are considered false. Otherwise, when there is a semicolon and the string after it is not empty, blank values are parsed as null.