### Time/date specifiers

There are two groups of time format specifiers: time/date and relative time. These may be used to generate axis tic labels or to encode time in a string. See set xtics time (p. ), strftime (p. ), strptime (p. ).

The time/date formats are

Date Specifiers
Format | Explanation
`%a` | abbreviated name of day of the week
`%A` | full name of day of the week
`%b` or `%h` | abbreviated name of the month
`%B` | full name of the month
`%d` | day of the month, 01–31
`%D` | shorthand for `"%m/%d/%y"` (only output)
`%F` | shorthand for `"%Y-%m-%d"` (only output)
`%k` | hour, 0–23 (one or two digits)
`%H` | hour, 00–23 (always two digits)
`%l` | hour, 1–12 (one or two digits)
`%I` | hour, 01–12 (always two digits)
`%j` | day of the year, 001–366
`%m` | month, 01–12
`%M` | minute, 00–60
`%p` | "am" or "pm"
`%r` | shorthand for `"%I:%M:%S %p"` (only output)
`%R` | shorthand for `%H:%M"` (only output)
`%S` | second, integer 00–60 on output, (double) on input
`%s` | number of seconds since start of year 1970
`%T` | shorthand for `"%H:%M:%S"` (only output)
`%U` | week of the year (CDC/MMWR "epi week") (ignored on input)
`%w` | day of the week, 0–6 (Sunday = 0)
`%W` | week of the year (ISO 8601 week date) (ignored on input)
`%y` | year, 0-99 in range 1969-2068
`%Y` | year, 4-digit
`%z` | timezone, [+-]hh:mm
`%Z` | timezone name, ignored string

For more information on the %W format (ISO week of year) see tm_week (p. ). The %U format (CDC/MMWR epidemiological week) is similar to %W except that it uses weeks that start on Sunday rather than Monday. Caveat: Both the %W and the %U formats were unreliable in gnuplot versions prior to 5.4.2. See unit test "week_date.dem".

The relative time formats express the length of a time interval on either side of a zero time point. The relative time formats are

Time Specifiers
Format | Explanation
`%tD` | +/- days relative to time=0
`%tH` | +/- hours relative to time=0 (does not wrap at 24)
`%tM` | +/- minutes relative to time=0
`%tS` | +/- seconds associated with previous tH or tM field

Numerical formats may be preceded by a "0" ("zero") to pad the field with leading zeroes, and preceded by a positive digit to define the minimum field width. The %S, and %t formats also accept a precision specifier so that fractional hours/minutes/seconds can be written.

Subsections

- Examples