# Format Functions

This section contains format functions that uses the pattern. The table below contains the supported patterns for the format functions.

| Letter for Pattern     | Date or Time component          |
| ---------------------- | ------------------------------- |
| G                      | Era designator                  |
| y or yy or yyyy        | Year                            |
| M or MM or MMM or MMMM | Month in year                   |
| w                      | Results in week in year         |
| W                      | Results in week in month        |
| D                      | Gives the day count in the year |
| d                      | Day of the month                |
| F                      | Day of the week in month        |
| E                      | Day name in the week            |
| a                      | AM or PM marker                 |
| H                      | Hour in the day (0-23)          |
| k                      | Hour in the day (1-24)          |
| m                      | Minute in the hour              |
| s                      | Second in the minute            |

#### <mark style="color:purple;">FORMAT\_DATE(</mark>  \<expr>,  format  <mark style="color:purple;">)</mark>

Returns the date expression formatted to the specified format.

```sql
> select format_date(cast('2023-02-15' as date), 'MM');
02
```

#### <mark style="color:purple;">FORMAT\_TIMESTAMP(</mark>  \<expr>,  format  <mark style="color:purple;">)</mark>

Return the timestamp formatted according to the specified format

```sql
> select format_timestamp(current_timestamp(), 'mm');
2023
```

This section contains format functions that uses the pattern. The table below contains the supported patterns for the format functions.

<table><thead><tr><th width="161">Specifier</th><th>Description</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>%a or %W</td><td>Abbreviated weekday name (Sun .. Sat) or Weekday name (Sunday .. Saturday)</td></tr><tr><td>%b or %M</td><td>Abbreviated month name (Jan .. Dec) or Month name (January .. December)</td></tr><tr><td>%d or %e</td><td>Day of the month, numeric (01 .. 31) or numeric (1 .. 31), this specifier does not support 0 as a month or day.</td></tr><tr><td>%c or %m</td><td>Month, numeric (1 .. 12), this specifier does not support 0 as a month.</td></tr><tr><td>%f</td><td>Fraction of second (6 digits for printing: 000000 .. 999000; 1 - 9 digits for parsing: 0 .. 999999999), timestamp is truncated to milliseconds</td></tr><tr><td>%H or %k</td><td>Hour (00 .. 23)</td></tr><tr><td>%h or %I</td><td>Hour (01 .. 12)</td></tr><tr><td>%j</td><td>Day of year (001 .. 366)</td></tr><tr><td>%i</td><td>Minutes, numeric (00 .. 59)</td></tr><tr><td>%S or %s</td><td>Seconds (00 .. 59)</td></tr><tr><td>%r</td><td>Time of day, 12-hour (equivalent to %h:%i:%s %p)</td></tr><tr><td>%T</td><td>Time of day, 24-hour (equivalent to %H:%i:%s)</td></tr><tr><td>%v</td><td>Week (01 .. 53), where Monday is the first day of the week and we can use %y or %x for year for using %x use 4 digits for year</td></tr><tr><td>%x</td><td>Year for the week, where Monday is the first day of the week, numeric, four digits; used with %v</td></tr><tr><td>%Y</td><td>Year, numeric, four digits</td></tr><tr><td>%y</td><td>Year, numeric (two digits), when parsing, two-digit year format assumes range 1970 .. 2069, so “70” will result in year 1970 but “69” will produce 2069</td></tr><tr><td>%%</td><td>A literal % character</td></tr></tbody></table>

#### <mark style="color:purple;">DATE\_FORMAT(</mark>  \<expr>,  format  <mark style="color:purple;">)</mark>

Return the date and timestamp formatted according to the specified format

```sql
> select date_format(cast('2024-08-26 22:38:11' as timestamp), '%m-%d-%Y %H');
08-26-2024 22
```