The International Standard for the representation of dates and times is ISO8601.

For unambiguous representation of dates and times the following formats have been chosen. The date separator - (dash) can be replaced with a / (slash). The time element separator T can be a blank. The time zone value of hh:mm can be hhmm or hh, but the + or - is mandatory. If no time zone is present then a hierarchy of time zones will be used, the time zone determined by the service or +00:00.

A program can pass a date value to the service using different formats. If the program field is numeric then use the all numbers format. If program field is an alphanumeric then use the string format or numeric format.

Possible program field values:

YYYYMMDD [TZD]
YYYYMMDDHHMMSS [TZD]
YYYY-MM-DD [TZD]
YYYY/MM/DD [TZD]
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS [TZD]
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS [TZD]
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.SSSSSSSSS [TZD]


YYYY
Four-digit year (1000-9999).
MM
Two-digit month (01-12).
DD
Two-digit day (01-31).
HH
Two-digit hour (00-23).
Default. 00.
MM
Two-digit minute (00-59).
Default 00.
SS
Two-digit second (00-59).
Default 00.
SSSSSSSSS   
One to nine digits representing a decimal fraction of a second.
Default: 000000000.
TZD
Time zone designator (Z or +hh:mm or -hh:mm)
Z means GMT or +00:00.
Default. +00:00.

Example program field date values:

    20040331
    20040331+10
    20040331150000
    20040331150000Z
    20040331150000+10
    20040331150000+1000
    20040331150000+10:00

    2004-03-31
    2004-03-31+10
    2004-03-31 15:00:00
    2004-03-31 15:00:00Z
    2004-03-31 15:00:00+10
    2004-03-31 15:00:00+1000
    2004-03-31 15:00:00+10:00
    2004-03-31 15:00:00.000+10

    2004-03-31T15:00:00.000+10:00

To convert a date time into a string representation the following case-sensitive date format patterns can be used.

yy
2-digit year
00-99.
yyyy
4-digit year
1000-9999.
MM
Month in year
01-12.
MMM
Month in year
Jan-Dec (Locale dependent).
MMMM
Month in year
January-December (Locale dependent).
dd
Day in month
01-31.
HH
Hour in day
00-23.
mm
Minute in hour
00-59.
ss
Second in minute
00-59.
SSS
Millisecond
000.
SSSSSSSSS
Nanosecond
000000000.
z
Time zone
GMT+00:00.
Z
Time zone
+0000.
ZZ
Time zone
+00:00.
AM/PM
AM PM Marker
AM or PM (Locale dependant).
hh
Hour in AM/PM
1-12.
EE
Day in week
1-7.

EEE

Day in week

Sun-Sat (Locale dependant).

EEEE

Day in week

Sunday-Saturday (Locale dependant)

Example date format patterns:

    dd-MM-yyyy
    dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss
    dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss Z