This page contains the full list of template patterns and template pattern modifiers that can be used when formatting date and times in PostgreSQL.

Template Patterns

The following table lists all template patterns that can be used in your format strings when formatting date and times in Postgres.

Pattern	Description
HH	Hour of day (01-12).
HH12	Hour of day (01-12).
HH24	Hour of day (00-23).
MI	Minute (00-59).
SS	Second (00-59).
MS	Millisecond (000-999).
US	Microsecond (000000-999999).
SSSS	Seconds past midnight (0-86399).
AM, am, PM or pm	Meridiem indicator (without periods).
A.M., a.m., P.M. or p.m.	Meridiem indicator (with periods).
Y,YYY	Year (4 or more digits) with comma.
YYYY	Year (4 or more digits).
YYY	Last 3 digits of year.
YY	Last 2 digits of year.
Y	Last digit of year.
IYYY	ISO 8601 week-numbering year (4 or more digits).
IYY	Last 3 digits of ISO 8601 week-numbering year.
IY	Last 2 digits of ISO 8601 week-numbering year.
I	Last digit of ISO 8601 week-numbering year.
BC, bc, AD or ad	Era indicator (without periods).
B.C., b.c., A.D. or a.d.	Era indicator (with periods).
MONTH	Full upper case month name (blank-padded to 9 chars).
Month	Full capitalized month name (blank-padded to 9 chars).
month	Full lower case month name (blank-padded to 9 chars).
MON	Abbreviated upper case month name (3 chars in English, localized lengths vary).
Mon	Abbreviated capitalized month name (3 chars in English, localized lengths vary).
mon	Abbreviated lower case month name (3 chars in English, localized lengths vary).
MM	Month number (01-12).
DAY	Full upper case day name (blank-padded to 9 chars).
Day	Full capitalized day name (blank-padded to 9 chars).
day	Full lower case day name (blank-padded to 9 chars).
DY	Abbreviated upper case day name (3 chars in English, localized lengths vary).
Dy	Abbreviated capitalized day name (3 chars in English, localized lengths vary).
dy	Abbreviated lower case day name (3 chars in English, localized lengths vary).
DDD	Day of year (001-366).
IDDD	Day of ISO 8601 week-numbering year (001-371; day 1 of the year is Monday of the first ISO week).
DD	Day of month (01-31).
D	Day of the week, Sunday (1) to Saturday (7).
ID	ISO 8601 day of the week, Monday (1) to Sunday (7).
W	Week of month (1-5) (the first week starts on the first day of the month).
WW	Week number of year (1-53) (the first week starts on the first day of the year).
IW	Week number of ISO 8601 week-numbering year (01-53; the first Thursday of the year is in week 1).
CC	Century (2 digits) (the twenty-first century starts on 2001-01-01).
J	Julian Day (integer days since November 24, 4714 BC at midnight UTC).
Q	Quarter.
RM	Month in upper case Roman numerals (I-XII; I=January).
rm	Month in lower case Roman numerals (i-xii; i=January).
TZ	Upper case time-zone abbreviation (only supported in to_char).
tz	Lower case time-zone abbreviation (only supported in to_char).
TZH	Time-zone hours.
TZM	Time-zone minutes.
OF	Time-zone offset from UTC (only supported in to_char).

Template Pattern Modifiers

The following modifiers can be applied to the above template patterns to alter the result.

Modifier	Description
FM prefix	Fill mode (suppress leading zeroes and padding blanks).
TH suffix	Upper case ordinal number suffix.
th suffix	Lower case ordinal number suffix.
FX prefix	Fixed format global option.
TM prefix	Translation mode (print localized day and month names based on lc_time).
SP suffix	Spell mode (not implemented).

Note that some of these are added as a prefix to the template pattern and others are added as a suffix.

All of the above template patterns and modifiers are based on the Postgres documentation, which includes usage notes. To see the usage notes, click on that link and scroll down. The usage notes are under the template modifiers.

Example

Here’s a quick example to demonstrate how it works.

SELECT to_char(date '2020-12-01', 'Dth');

Result:

3rd

In this case, the D was for the day of the month (3), and the th was used to add the ordinal indicator (in this case, rd).