Java Doc for DateTool.java in  » Template-Engine » Velocity » org » apache » velocity » tools » generic » Java Source Code / Java DocumentationJava Source Code and Java Documentation

 Example of formatting the "current" date:
 $date                         -> Oct 19, 2003 9:54:50 PM
 $date.long                    -> October 19, 2003 9:54:50 PM PDT
 $date.medium_time             -> 9:54:50 PM
 $date.full_date               -> Sunday, October 19, 2003
 $date.get('default','short')  -> Oct 19, 2003 9:54 PM
 $date.get('yyyy-M-d H:m:s')   -> 2003-10-19 21:54:50
 Example of formatting an arbitrary date:
 $myDate                        -> Tue Oct 07 03:14:50 PDT 2003
 $date.format('medium',$myDate) -> Oct 7, 2003 3:14:50 AM
 Example toolbox.xml config (if you want to use this with VelocityView):
 <tool>
 <key>date</key>
 <scope>application</scope>
 <class>org.apache.velocity.tools.generic.DateTool</class>
 <parameter name="format" value="yyyy-M-d"/>
 </tool>
 

The methods of this tool are highly interconnected, and overriding key methods provides an easy way to create subclasses that use a non-default format, calendar, locale, or timezone.

The specified format may be a standard style pattern ('full', 'long', 'medium', 'short', or 'default').

You may also specify that you want only the date or time portion be appending '_date' or '_time' respectively to the standard style pattern. (e.g.

The specified format may be a standard style pattern ('full', 'long', 'medium', 'short', or 'default').

You may also specify that you want only the date or time portion be appending '_date' or '_time' respectively to the standard style pattern. (e.g. 'full_date' or 'long_time')

If the format fits neither of these patterns, then the output will be formatted according to the symbols defined by SimpleDateFormat :

 Symbol   Meaning                 Presentation        Example
 ------   -------                 ------------        -------
 G        era designator          (Text)              AD
 y        year                    (Number)            1996
 M        month in year           (Text & Number)     July & 07
 d        day in month            (Number)            10
 h        hour in am/pm (1~12)    (Number)            12
 H        hour in day (0~23)      (Number)            0
 m        minute in hour          (Number)            30
 s        second in minute        (Number)            55
 S        millisecond             (Number)            978
 E        day in week             (Text)              Tuesday
 D        day in year             (Number)            189
 F        day of week in month    (Number)            2 (2nd Wed in July)
 w        week in year            (Number)            27
 W        week in month           (Number)            2
 a        am/pm marker            (Text)              PM
 k        hour in day (1~24)      (Number)            24
 K        hour in am/pm (0~11)    (Number)            0
 z        time zone               (Text)              Pacific Standard Time
 '        escape for text         (Delimiter)
 ''       single quote            (Literal)           '
 Examples: "E, MMMM d" will result in "Tue, July 24"
 "EEE, M-d (H:m)" will result in "Tuesday, 7-24 (14:12)"
 

Sub-classes may override this method to return a Calendar instance not based on the system date. Doing so will also cause the getDate(), get(String), get(String,String), and toString() methods to return dates equivalent to the Calendar returned by this method, because those methods return values derived from the result of this method.

This can now be configured via the toolbox definition. Add a <parameter name="format" value="short"/> to your date tool configuration.