The data type xs:dateTime represents an instant in time.

The xs:dateTime data type has the following properties:

  • year
  • month
  • day
  • hour
  • minute
  • second
  • time zone (optional)

The year, month, day, hour, and minute properties are expressed as integer values. The seconds property is expressed as a decimal value. The time zone property is expressed as a time zone indicator.

Lexical form

The lexical form of xs:dateTime is a finite-length sequence of characters of the following form: yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss.sssssssssssszzzzzz. The following abbreviations describe this form:

  • yyyy
  • A four-digit numeral that represents the year.

The value cannot begin with a negative (-) sign or a plus (+) sign.

0001 is the lexical representation of the year 1 of the Common Era (also known as 1 AD).

The value cannot be 0000.

  • -
  • Separators between parts of the date portion
  • mm
  • A two-digit numeral that represents the month.
  • dd
  • A two-digit numeral that represents the day.
  • T
  • A separator to indicate that the time of day follows.
  • hh
  • A two-digit numeral (with leading zeros as required) that represents the hours. The value must be between -14 and +14, inclusive.
  • :
  • A separator between parts of the time portion.
  • mm
  • A two-digit numeral that represents the minute.
  • ss
  • A two-digit numeral that represents the whole seconds.
  • .ssssssssssss
  • Optional. If present, a 1-to-12 digit numeral that represents the fractional seconds.
  • zzzzzz
  • Optional. If present, represents the time zone. If a time zone is not specified the dateTime has no timezone; however, an implicit time zone of UTC (Coordinated Universal Time, also called Greenwich Mean Time) is used for comparison and arithmetic operations.

Each part of the datetime value that is expressed as a numeric value is constrained to the maximum value within the interval that is determined by the next-higher part of the datetime value. For example, the day value can never be 32 and cannot be 29 for month 02 and year 2002 (February 2002).

Timezone indicator

The lexical form for the time zone indicator is a string that includes one of the following forms:

  • A positive (+) or negative (-) sign that is followed by hh:mm, where the following abbreviations are used:
    • hh
    • A two-digit numeral (with leading zeros as required) that represents the hours. The value must be between -14 and +14, inclusive.
    • mm
    • A two-digit numeral that represents the minutes. The value of the minutes property must be zero when the hours property is equal to 14.
    • +
    • Indicates that the specified time instant is in a time zone that is ahead of the UTC time by hh hours and mm minutes.
    • -
    • Indicates that the specified time instant is in a time zone that is behind UTC time by hh hours and mm minutes.
  • The literal Z, which represents the time in UTC (Z represents Zulu time, which is equivalent to UTC). Specifying Z for the time zone is equivalent to specifying +00:00 or -00:00.

Example

The following form indicates noon on 10 October 2009, Eastern Standard Time in the United States:

2009-10-10T12:00:00-05:00Copy code

This time is expressed in UTC as 2009-10-10T17:00:00Z.

Parent topic:

Date and time data types


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