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Oracle
docs.oracle.com › cd › E41183_01 › DR › Date_Format_Types.html
Date Format Types
You are here: Function Reference > Date Functions > Date Formats > Date Format Types · Month abbreviations consist of the first three characters of the month’s name. Months with four-character names, such as June, are not abbreviated. Here are some examples, using December 18, 2010: © Copyright 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates.
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ISO
iso.mit.edu › americanisms › date-format-in-the-united-states
Date Format in the United States | ISO
In America, the date is formally written in month/day/year form. Thus, “January 1, 2011” is widely considered to be correct. In formal usage, it is not appropriate to omit the year, or to use a purely numerical form of the date. For example, if you were to write a formal letter for business, ...
Discussions

java - What is this date format? 2011-08-12T20:17:46.384Z - Stack Overflow
Date/time format like "YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.SSSZ" is ISO 8601 date/time format. ... You can use the following example. More on stackoverflow.com
🌐 stackoverflow.com
Dd/mm/yyyy is the correct way to write a date
Popular opinion on literally the rest of the world but the US More on reddit.com
🌐 r/unpopularopinion
993
6984
April 28, 2018
How do Americans write dates?
mm/dd/yyyy is standard everywhere I've been other than the military. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/AskAnAmerican
95
28
September 11, 2018
CMV: YYYY-MM-DD is the superior date format
There is something to be said for presenting the most useful information first. We typically don't need to say the year. For example, If i told you I was going to do something January 10th, you would know what I mean. We also don't ways need to say the month. If i told you i'd do something on the 21st, you'd assume i'm meant the 21st of this month. So we we start with the most relevant information first, there a decent debate to be had over whether we should say the day or the month first. But definitely the year is not very relevant. Very often we only need MM/DD or DD/MM. YYYY/xx/xx is a waste of some space. Especially when speaking. In terms of sorting, most of the time dates are stores as dates and rendered in any format selected. So you can sort properly regardless of format. YYYY-MM-DD has its place. Its good when communicating between different applications which don't share a common data structure. Like between Excel and a database. Its also good when embedded into text fields which you want to sort. Although really you shouldn't be doing that. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/changemyview
101
26
December 13, 2018
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IBM
ibm.com › docs › SS6V3G_5.3.1 › com.ibm.help.gswformsintug.doc › GSW_Date_Time_Formats.html
Date/Time Formats
The Date Formats global option changes the default date format for all maps or forms. However, the format of the existing date fields do not change; the default is only used for new maps or forms.
conventions for date representation around the world
The legal and cultural expectations for date and time representation vary between countries, and it is important to be aware of the forms of all-numeric calendar dates used in a particular country … Wikipedia
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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › List_of_date_formats_by_country
List of date formats by country - Wikipedia
2 days ago - For instance, depending on the order style, the abbreviated date "01/11/06" can be interpreted as "1 November 2006" for DMY, "January 11, 2006" for MDY, or "2001 November 6" for YMD. The ISO 8601 format YYYY-MM-DD (2026-03-10) is intended to harmonise these formats and ensure accuracy in all ...
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Critical Impact
support.criticalimpact.com › hc › en-us › articles › 360024689072-Example-Date-Formats
Example Date Formats – Critical Impact
For automated messages to work properly, the date custom fields must have the same valid date format. Please review the acceptable date formats below. Valid Date Formats Example D-MMM...
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Golden Software
surferhelp.goldensoftware.com › gscomlib › Date_Time_Formats.htm
Date Time Formats
All rows below use the date September 7, 1998 for the Example. All rows below use the time 2:45:44.12 PM for the Example.
Find elsewhere
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Dataoneorg
dataoneorg.github.io › Education › bestpractices › describe-formats-for
Best Practice: Describe formats for date and time
The date and time are important pieces of contextual information for observations. A complete description of date and time allows the observation to be used and interpreted properly. ISO 8601 format date: YYYY-MM-DD time: HH:MM:SS datatime: YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS
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Unicode
unicode-org.github.io › icu › userguide › format_parse › datetime
Formatting Dates and Times | ICU Documentation
The Date Field Symbol Table below contains the characters used in patterns to show the appropriate formats for a given locale, such as yyyy for the year. Characters may be used multiple times. For example, if y is used for the year, "yy" might produce “99”, whereas "yyyy" produces “1999”. ...
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Unicode
cldr.unicode.org › translation › date-time › date-time-patterns
Date/Time Patterns
April 1, 2025 - For example, if you are working in Catalan (a locale that uses prepositions in formatting month names), and you provide “setembre” for the formatting month name instead of “de setembre,” then the pattern d MMMM will display as “12 septembre” instead of the correct pattern “12 ...
Top answer
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The T is just a literal to separate the date from the time, and the Z means "zero hour offset" also known as "Zulu time" (UTC). If your strings always have a "Z" you can use:

SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat(
    "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'", Locale.US);
format.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));

Or using Joda Time, you can use ISODateTimeFormat.dateTime().

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tl;dr

Standard ISO 8601 format is used by your input string.

Instant.parse ( "2011-08-12T20:17:46.384Z" ) 

ISO 8601

This format is defined by the sensible practical standard, ISO 8601.

The T separates the date portion from the time-of-day portion. The Z on the end means UTC (that is, an offset-from-UTC of zero hours-minutes-seconds). The Z is pronounced “Zulu”.

java.time

The old date-time classes bundled with the earliest versions of Java have proven to be poorly designed, confusing, and troublesome. Avoid them.

Instead, use the java.time framework built into Java 8 and later. The java.time classes supplant both the old date-time classes and the highly successful Joda-Time library.

The java.time classes use ISO 8601 by default when parsing/generating textual representations of date-time values.

The Instant class represents a moment on the timeline in UTC with a resolution of nanoseconds. That class can directly parse your input string without bothering to define a formatting pattern.

Instant instant = Instant.parse ( "2011-08-12T20:17:46.384Z" ) ;


About java.time

The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.

To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.

The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.

You may exchange java.time objects directly with your database. Use a JDBC driver compliant with JDBC 4.2 or later. No need for strings, no need for java.sql.* classes. Hibernate 5 & JPA 2.2 support java.time.

Where to obtain the java.time classes?

  • Java SE 8, Java SE 9, Java SE 10, Java SE 11, and later - Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
    • Java 9 brought some minor features and fixes.
  • Java SE 6 and Java SE 7
    • Most of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
  • Android
    • Later versions of Android (26+) bundle implementations of the java.time classes.
    • For earlier Android (<26), a process known as API desugaring brings a subset of the java.time functionality not originally built into Android.
      • If the desugaring does not offer what you need, the ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above) to Android. See How to use ThreeTenABP….

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Qlik Talend Help
help.qlik.com › talend data preparation user guide › working with the data › cleansing dates › list of date and date/time formats
List of date and date/time formats | Talend Data Preparation User Guide Help
According to the locale of your Java installation, the validation results may be different when using patterns which have a weekday and a month name. Talend Data Preparation first validates dates and times using the en_US locale and then, using the default locale of the Java installation of the server. For example, if the Java Virtual Machine locale is set to French, "22.
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Jarte
jarte.com › help_new › date_and_time_formats.html
Date and Time Formats
Date and Time Formats · Jarte's Insert Date and Time formats the date and time inserted into a document according to the conventions of your geographic locale. However, advanced settings Long Date Format (F5 key), Short Date Format (Shift+F5 key), Day Date Format, and Time Format can be used ...
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Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-us › dotnet › standard › base-types › custom-date-and-time-format-strings
Custom date and time format strings - .NET | Microsoft Learn
Dim thisDate1 As Date = #6/10/2011# ... H:mm:ss zzz}", thisDate2) ' The example displays the following output: ' Today is June 10, 2011....
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Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-us › dotnet › standard › base-types › standard-date-and-time-format-strings
Standard date and time format strings - .NET | Microsoft Learn
You can pass a DateTimeFormatInfo object that provides formatting information to a method that has an IFormatProvider parameter. The following example displays a date using the short date format from a DateTimeFormatInfo object for the hr-HR culture.
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ScribeSoft
help.scribesoft.com › scribe › en › sol › general › datetime.htm
Text Connector DateTime Formats
The Fields tab on the Text File ... must enter the format for the Date/Time in the Date Format field using one of the following formats: yyyy-M-d — Example: 2013-6-23 ·...
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Google
developers.google.com › google workspace › google sheets › date and number formats
Date and number formats | Google Sheets | Google for Developers
January 21, 2026 - The following table defines the ... format pattern. A + character indicates that the previous character can appear one or more times and still match the pattern. Characters not listed in this table are treated as literals, and are output without changes. Given the date and time Tuesday, April 5, 2016, 4:08:53.528 PM, the following table shows some example patterns and ...
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W3Schools
w3schools.com › js › js_date_formats.asp
W3Schools.com
The behavior of "DD-MM-YYYY" is also undefined. Some browsers will try to guess the format. Some will return NaN. ... Commas are ignored. Names are case insensitive: const d = new Date("JANUARY, 25, 2015"); Try it Yourself »
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MDN Web Docs
developer.mozilla.org › en-US › docs › Web › HTML › Guides › Date_and_time_formats
Using date and time formats in HTML - HTML | MDN
Elements that use such formats include certain forms of the <input> element that let the user choose or specify a date, time, or both, as well as the <ins> and <del> elements, whose datetime attribute specifies the date or date and time at which the insertion or deletion of content occurred.