— Function: date->string date [format]

Convert a date to a string under the control of a format. format should be a string containing ‘~’ escapes, which will be expanded as per the following conversion table. The default format is ‘~c’, a locale-dependent date and time.

Many of these conversion characters are the same as POSIX strftime (see Time), but there are some extras and some variations.

~~	literal ~
~a	locale abbreviated weekday, eg. ‘Sun’
~A	locale full weekday, eg. ‘Sunday’
~b	locale abbreviated month, eg. ‘Jan’
~B	locale full month, eg. ‘January’
~c	locale date and time, eg. ‘Fri Jul 14 20:28:42-0400 2000’
~d	day of month, zero padded, ‘01’ to ‘31’
~e	day of month, blank padded, ‘ 1’ to ‘31’
~f	seconds and fractional seconds, with locale decimal point, eg. ‘5.2’
~h	same as ~b
~H	hour, 24-hour clock, zero padded, ‘00’ to ‘23’
~I	hour, 12-hour clock, zero padded, ‘01’ to ‘12’
~j	day of year, zero padded, ‘001’ to ‘366’
~k	hour, 24-hour clock, blank padded, ‘ 0’ to ‘23’
~l	hour, 12-hour clock, blank padded, ‘ 1’ to ‘12’
~m	month, zero padded, ‘01’ to ‘12’
~M	minute, zero padded, ‘00’ to ‘59’
~n	newline
~N	nanosecond, zero padded, ‘000000000’ to ‘999999999’
~p	locale AM or PM
~r	time, 12 hour clock, ‘~I:~M:~S ~p’
~s	number of full seconds since “the epoch” in UTC
~S	second, zero padded ‘00’ to ‘60’ (usual limit is 59, 60 is a leap second)
~t	horizontal tab character
~T	time, 24 hour clock, ‘~H:~M:~S’
~U	week of year, Sunday first day of week, ‘00’ to ‘52’
~V	week of year, Monday first day of week, ‘01’ to ‘53’
~w	day of week, 0 for Sunday, ‘0’ to ‘6’
~W	week of year, Monday first day of week, ‘00’ to ‘52’
~y	year, two digits, ‘00’ to ‘99’
~Y	year, full, eg. ‘2003’
~z	time zone, RFC-822 style
~Z	time zone symbol (not currently implemented)
~1	ISO-8601 date, ‘~Y-~m-~d’
~2	ISO-8601 time+zone, ‘~k:~M:~S~z’
~3	ISO-8601 time, ‘~k:~M:~S’
~4	ISO-8601 date/time+zone, ‘~Y-~m-~dT~k:~M:~S~z’
~5	ISO-8601 date/time, ‘~Y-~m-~dT~k:~M:~S’