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# 12.4. FormatTime

## Purpose

This routine is used to format a date-time quantity into a human readable form.

## Interface

      $result = &FormatTime($fmt, $var);

## Description

The first parameter is either a format string or the name of a variable containing a format string. The second parameter is the name of the variable to be formatted. The variable's value is a number of seconds since January 1, 1970.

The building blocks used in the format strings are given below.

Symbol | Description | Example
$day | day number in month | 6 or 22
$day0 | day number in month zero-padded | 06 or 22
$month | month name | January
$smonth | abbreviated month name | Jan
$monthnum | month number (1..12) | 6 or 12
$monthnum0 | month number zero-padded (01..12) | 06 or 12
$year | year | 1995
$syear | abbreviated year | 95
$weekday | weekday name | Monday
$sweekday | abbreviated weekday name | Mon
$hour | hour (1..24) | 6 or 14
$hour0 | hour zero-padded (01..24) | 06 or 14
$shour | hour (1..12) | 6 or 12
$shour0 | hour zero-padded (01..12) | 06 or 12
$ampm | am or pm | am
$AMPM | AM or PM | PM
$minute | minute (0..59) | 0 or 42
$minute0 | minute zero-padded (00..59) | 00 or 42
$second | second (0..59) | 0 or 42
$second0 | second zero-padded (00..59) | 00 or 42

Commonly used formats are defined in the variables given below.

Variable | Value
FMT_FULL | $day $month $year, $hour:$minute0.$second0
FMT_TIME | $hour:$minute0.$second0
FMT_DATE | $day $month $year
FMT_CONCISE | $day0-$smonth-$syear

## Examples

To format the 'last modified' date-time for a document:

       &FormatTime('FMT_FULL', 'DOC_MODIFIED')

To format the year when conversion started (for copyright reasons, say):

       &FormatTime('$year', 'DOC_START')