Go by Example: Time Formatting / Parsing

Go supports time formatting and parsing via pattern-based layouts.
	package main
	import "fmt" import "time"
	func check(e error) { if e != nil { panic(e) } } func main() { p := fmt.Println
Here’s a basic example of formatting a time according to RFC3339, using the corresponding layout constant.	t := time.Now() p(t.Format(time.RFC3339))
Time parsing uses the same layout values as `Format`.	t1, e := time.Parse( time.RFC3339, "2012-11-01T22:08:41+00:00") check(e) p(t1)
`Format` and `Parse` uses example-based layouts. Usually you’ll use a constant from `time` for these layouts, but you can also supply custom layouts. Layouts must use the reference time `Mon Jan 2 15:04:05 MST 2006` to show the pattern with which to format/parse a given time/string. The example time must be exactly as shown: the year 2006, 15 for the hour, Monday for the day of the week, etc.	p(t.Format("3:04PM")) p(t.Format("Mon Jan _2 15:04:05 2006")) p(t.Format("2006-01-02T15:04:05.999999-07:00")) form := "3 04 PM" t2, e := time.Parse(form, "8 41 PM") check(e) p("Parse:", t2.Format(time.RFC3339))
Generally, we want to save time in Local time zone.	loc, e := time.LoadLocation("Local") check(e) t3, e := time.ParseInLocation(form, "8 41 PM", loc) check(e) p("ParseInLocation:", t3.Format(time.RFC3339))
For purely numeric representations you can also use standard string formatting with the extracted components of the time value.	fmt.Printf("%d-%02d-%02dT%02d:%02d:%02d-00:00\n", t.Year(), t.Month(), t.Day(), t.Hour(), t.Minute(), t.Second())
`Parse` will return an error on malformed input explaining the parsing problem.	yyyymm := "2006" _, e = time.Parse(yyyymm, "08:41") p(e) }

$ go run time-formatting-parsing.go
2014-09-08T12:40:56+08:00
2012-11-01 22:08:41 +0000 +0000
12:40PM
Mon Sep  8 12:40:56 2014
2014-09-08T12:40:56.048654+08:00
Parse: 0000-01-01T20:41:00Z
ParseInLocation: 0000-01-01T20:41:00+08:00
2014-09-08T12:40:56-00:00
parsing time "08:41" as "2006": cannot parse "1" as "2006"

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