SQLite strftime Function

The SQLite strftime function is a very powerful function which facilitates you to fetch date and time and also perform date calculation.

Syntax:

snippet

strftime(format, timestring [, modifier1, modifier2, ... modifier_n ] )

Here, format can be any of the following:

Index	format	Explanation
1)	%Y	Year as 4 digits (0000 to 9999)
2)	%W	Week of year (00 to 53)
3)	%w	Day of week (0 to 6, where 0 is Sunday)
4)	%m	Month of year (01 to 12)
5)	%d	Day of month (00 to 31)
6)	%H	Hour (00 to 24)
7)	%M	Minute (00 to 25)
8)	%S	Seconds (00 to 59)
9)	%s	Seconds since 1970-01-01
10)	%f	Fractional seconds (SS.SSS)
11)	%j	Day of year (001 to 366)
12)	%J	Julian day as a numeric value

Here, timestring is a date value which can be anyone of the following:

Index	timestring	Description
1)	now	It is a literal used to return the current date.
2)	YYYY-MM-DD	It specifies the date value formatted as 'YYYY-MM-DD'
3)	YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM	It specifies the date value formatted as 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM'
4)	YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS	It specifies the date value formatted as 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS'
5)	YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.SSS	It specifies the date value formatted as 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.SSS'
6)	HH:MM	It specifies the date value formatted as 'HH:MM'
7)	HH:MM:SS	It specifies the date value formatted as 'HH:MM:SS'
8)	HH:MM:SS.SSS	It specifies the date value formatted as 'HH:MM:SS.SSS'
9)	YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM	It specifies the date value formatted as 'YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM' where t is a literal character separating the date and time portions.
10)	YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS	It specifies the date value formatted as 'YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS' where t is a literal character separating the date and time portions
11)	YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.SSS	It specifies the date value formatted as 'YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.SSS' where t is a literal character separating the date and time portions
12)	DDDDDDDDDD	It specifies the Julian date number

modifier1, modifier2, ... modifier_n: modifiers are optional. These are used with timestring to add or subtract time, date or years.

Index	Modifier	Description
1)	[+-]NNN years	It is used to specify number of years added/subtracted to the date
2)	[+-]NNN months	It is used to specify number of months added/subtracted to the date
3)	[+-]NNN days	It is used to specify number of days added/subtracted to the date
4)	[+-]NNN hours	It is used to specify number of hours added/subtracted to the date
5)	[+-]NNN minutes	It is used to specify number of minutes added/subtracted to the date
6)	[+-]NNN seconds	It is used to specify number of seconds added/subtracted to the date
7)	[+-]NNN.NNNN seconds	It is used to specify number of seconds (and fractional seconds) added/subtracted to the date
8)	start of year	It is used to shift the date back to the start of the year
9)	start of month	It is used to shift the date back to the start of the month
10)	start of day	It is used to shift the date back to the start of the day
11)	weekday N	It is used to move the date forward to the next date where weekday number is N (0=Sunday, 1=Monday, 2=Tuesday, 3=Wednesday, 4=Thursday, 5=Friday, 6=Saturday)
12)	unixepoch	It is used with the DDDDDDDDDD timestring to interpret the date as UNIX Time (ie: number of seconds since 1970-01-01)
13)	localtime	It is used to adjust date to localtime, assuming the timestring was expressed in UTC
14)	utc	It is used to adjust date to utc, assuming the timestring was expressed in localtime

Example1: Retrieve Current Date:

snippet

SELECT strftime('%Y %m %d', 'now');
SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M', 'now');

Output:

Example2: Retrieve First day of the month:

snippet

SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d', '2017-04-14', 'start of month');
SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d', 'now', 'start of month');
SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d', '2017-03-07', '-6 days');
SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d', 'now', '-13 days');

Output:

Example2: Retrieve Last day of the month:

snippet

SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d', '2017-03-07', 'start of month', '+1 month', '-1 day'); 
SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d', 'now', 'start of month', '+1 month', '-1 day');
SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d', '2017-03-07', '+24 days');
SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d', 'now', '+24 days');

Output:

Example3: Add/ Subtract years and days:

snippet

SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d', '2017-04-14', '+2 years');
SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d', 'now', '-2 years');
SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d', '2017-04-14', '+7 days');
SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d', 'now', '-10 days');

Output: