Standard Format Masks
Specifies general patterns to use for formatting, which will vary based on the culture being used. For example, using the short time character t, the time 2:30:22 am would display for US English as: 2:30
| Character | Description | Example (US English) |
| d | Short date | 1/1/2001 |
| D | Long date | Monday, January 1, 2001 |
| f | Full date and time (long date and short time) | Monday, January 1, 2001 10:30 a |
| F | Full date and time (long date and long time) | Monday, January 1, 2001 10:30:22 am |
| g | General date (short date and short time) | 1/1/2001 10:30 a |
| G | General date (short date and long time) | 1/1/2001 10:30:22 a |
| m,M | Month and day | January, 1 |
| r,R | RFC 1123 specification | Mon, 1 JAN 2001 10:30:22 GMT |
| t | Short time | 10:30 a |
| T | Long time | 10:30:22 am |
| y,Y | Year month | January 2001 |
Custom Format Masks
Individual patterns used to build custom format masks that are independent of culture.
| Pattern | Description | Example (US English) |
| d | The day of the month. Single-digit days will not have a leading zero. | 1 |
| dd | The day of the month. Single-digit days will have a leading zero. | 01 |
| ddd | The abbreviated name of the day of the week. | MON |
| dddd | The full name of the day of the week. | Monday |
| M | The numeric month. Single-digit months will not have a leading zero. | 1 |
| MM | The numeric month. Single-digit months will have a leading zero. | 01 |
| MMM | The abbreviated name of the month. | JAN |
| MMMM | The full name of the month. | January |
| y | The year without the century. If the year without the century is less than 10, the year is displayed with no leading zero. |
1 |
| yy | The year without the century. If the year without the century is less than 10, the year is displayed with a leading zero. |
01 |
| yyyy | The year in four digits, including the century. | 2001 |
| h | The hour in a 12-hour clock. Single-digit hours will not have a leading zero. | 1 |
| hh | The hour in a 12-hour clock. Single-digit hours will have a leading zero. | 01 |
| H | The hour in a 24-hour clock. Single-digit hours will not have a leading zero. | 1 |
| HH | The hour in a 24-hour clock. Single-digit hours will have a leading zero. | 01 |
| m | The minute. Single-digit minutes will not have a leading zero. | 1 |
| mm | The minute. Single-digit minutes will have a leading zero. | 01 |
| s | The second. Single-digit seconds will not have a leading zero. | 1 |
| ss | The second. Single-digit seconds will have a leading zero. | 01 |
| f | The fraction of a second in single-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 1 |
| ff | The fraction of a second in double-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 11 |
| fff | The fraction of a second in three-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 111 |
| ffff | The fraction of a second in four-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 1111 |
| fffff | The fraction of a second in five-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 11111 |
| ffffff | The fraction of a second in six-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 111111 |
| fffffff | The fraction of a second in seven-digit precision. The remaining digits are truncated. | 1111111 |
| t | The first character in the AM/PM designator. | p |
| tt | The AM/PM designator. | pm |
| z | The GMT time zone offset ("+" or "-" followed by the hour only). Single-digit hours will not have a leading zero. |
Pacific Standard Time is "-8" |
| zz | The GMT time zone offset ("+" or "-" followed by the hour only). Single-digit hours will have a leading zero. |
Pacific Standard Time is "-08". |
| zzz | The full GMT time zone offset ("+" or "-" followed by the hour and minutes). Singledigit hours and minutes will have leading zeros. |
Pacific Standard Time is "-08:00". |
| : | The default time separator defined for the culture. | : |
| / | The default date separator defined for the culture. | / |
| \c | Where c is any character. Displays the character literally. To display the backslash character, use "\\". |
\\ |