Visual Basic 2010 Lesson 16 – Formatting Date and Time

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16.1 Formatting Date and time using predefined formats

In Visual Basic 2010, date and time can be formatted using predefined formats and also user-defined formats.

* Instead of “General date”, you can also use the abbreviated format “G”, i.e. Format (Now, “G”). And for “Long Time”, you can use the abbreviated format “T”. As for “Short Time”, you may use the abbreviated format “t”

The predefined formats of date and time are shown in Table 16.1.

Example 16.1

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
 Label1.Text = Format(Now, "General Date")
 Label2.Text = Format(Now, "Long Date")
 Label3.Text = Format(Now, "short Date")
 Label4.Text = Format(Now, "Long Time")
 Label5.Text = Format(Now, "Short Time")
End Sub

The output is shown in the diagram below:

16.2 Formatting Date and time using user-defined formats

Besides using the predefined formats, you can also use the user-defined formatting functions. The syntax of a user-defined for date/time is

Format (expression,style)

Example 16.2

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click, Button2.Click, Button3.Click
 Label1.Text = Format(Now, "M")
 Label2.Text = Format(Now, "MM")
 Label3.Text = Format(Now, "MMM")
 Label4.Text = Format(Now, "MMMM")
 Label5.Text = Format(Now, "dd/MM/yyyy")
 Label6.Text = Format(Now, "MMM,d,yyyy")
 Label7.Text = Format(Now, "h:mm:ss tt")
 Label8.Text = Format(Now, "MM/dd/yyyy h:mm:ss tt")
End Sub

The output is shown in the diagram below:

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