NAME
Variant Formats
NOTES
When formatting a variant a variety of format strings may be used to generate different kinds of formatted output. A format string consists of either a named format, or a user-defined format.
The following named formats are defined:
Name Description
---- -----------
General Date Display Date, and time for non-integer values
Short Date Short date format as defined by locale settings
Medium Date Medium date format as defined by locale settings
Long Date Long date format as defined by locale settings
Short Time Short Time format as defined by locale settings
Medium Time Medium time format as defined by locale settings
Long Time Long time format as defined by locale settings
True/False Localised text of "True" or "False"
Yes/No Localised text of "Yes" or "No"
On/Off Localised text of "On" or "Off"
General Number No thousands separator. No decimal points for integers
Currency General currency format using localised characters
Fixed At least one whole and two fractional digits
Standard Same as 'Fixed', but including decimal separators
Percent Multiply by 100 and display a trailing '%' character
Scientific Display with exponent.
User-defined formats consist of a combination of tokens and literal characters. Literal characters are copied unmodified to the formatted output at the position they occupy in the format string. Any character that is not recognised as a token is treated as a literal. A literal can also be specified by preceding it with a backslash character (e.g. "t\
A user-defined format can have up to 4 sections, depending on the type of format. The following table lists sections and their meaning:
Format Type Sections Meaning
----------- -------- -------
Number 1 Use the same format for all numbers
Number 2 Use format 1 for positive and 2 for negative numbers
Number 3 Use format 1 for positive, 2 for zero, and 3
for negative numbers.
Number 4 Use format 1 for positive, 2 for zero, 3 for
negative, and 4 for null numbers.
String 1 Use the same format for all strings
String 2 Use format 2 for null and empty strings, otherwise
use format 1.
Date 1 Use the same format for all dates.
The formatting tokens fall into several categories depending on the type of formatted output. For more information on each type, see VarFormat-Dates(), VarFormat-Strings(3w) and VarFormat-Numbers(3w).
SEE ALSO
VarTokenizeFormatString(), VarFormatFromTokens(3w), VarFormat(3w), VarFormatDateTime(), VarFormatNumber(3w), VarFormatCurrency(3w).