Version

    Data Formats

    Date and Time Format

    Numeric Format

    Boolean Format

    String Format

    Sometimes, a Format may be defined for parsing and formatting data values.

    1. Any date can be parsed and/or formatted using date and time format pattern. See Date and Time Format.

      Parsing and formatting can also be influenced by Locale (names of months, order of day or month information, etc.) and Time Zone.

    2. Any numeric data type (decimal, integer, long, number) can be parsed and/or formatted using the numeric format pattern. See Numeric Format.

      Parsing and formatting can also be influenced by locale (e.g. decimal dot or decimal comma, etc.). See Locale.

    3. Any boolean data type can be parsed and formatted using the boolean format pattern. See Boolean Format.

    4. Any string data type can be parsed using the string format pattern. See String Format.

    Remember that both date and time formats and numeric formats are displayed using the system Locale value or the Locale specified in the defaultProperties file, unless another Locale is explicitly specified.

    For more information on how Locale may be changed in the defaultProperties see Engine Configuration.
    Date and Time Format

    A formatting string describes how date/time values should be read and written from/to string representation (flat files, human readable output, etc.). Formatting and parsing of dates is also affected by Locale and Time Zone.

    A format can also specify an engine which CloverDX will use by specifying a prefix (see below). There are two built-in date engines available: standard Java and third-party Joda (https://www.joda.org/joda-time).

    Table 9. Available date engines
    Date engine Prefix Default Description Example

    Java

    java:

    yes - when no prefix is given

    Standard Java date implementation. Provides lenient, error-prone and full-featured parsing and writing. It has moderate speed and is generally a good choice unless you need to work with large quantities of date/time fields. For advanced study, please refer to Java SimpleDateFormat documentation.

    java:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss

    Joda

    joda:

    An improved third-party date library. Joda is more strict on input data accuracy when parsing and does not work well with time zones. Joda provides a 20-30% speed increase compared to standard Java.

    Joda may be convenient for AS/400 machines.

    On the other hand, Joda is unable to read a time zone expressed with any number of z letters and/or at least three Z letters in a pattern.

    For further reading, please visit the project site at https://www.joda.org/joda-time).

    joda:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss

    iso-8601

    This format offers support to parse and print dates and times formatted according to ISO 8601. The standard provides more ways of time expression, but usually the format YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss±hh:mm is used - especially in the case of data interchange using XML or JSON documents.

    For additional information on the standard, see Wikipedia article on ISO-8601

    There are three possible format values:

    • iso-8601:dateTime for timestamps

    • iso-8601:date for simple dates without time information

    • iso-8601:time for simple times without date information

    Please note that actual format strings for Java and Joda are almost 100% compatible with each other - see tables below.

    The format patterns described in this section are used both in metadata as the Format property and in CTL.

    At first, we provide the list of pattern syntax, the rules and the examples of its usage for Java:

    Table 10. Date Format Pattern Syntax (Java)
    Letter Date or Time Component Presentation Examples

    G

    Era designator

    Text

    AD

    y

    Year

    Year

    1996; 96

    Y

    Week year

    Year

    2009; 09

    M

    Month in year

    Month

    July; Jul; VII; 07; 7

    w

    Week in year

    Number

    27

    W

    Week in month

    Number

    2

    D

    Day in year

    Number

    189

    d

    Day in month

    Number

    10

    F

    Day of week in month

    Number

    2

    E

    Day in week

    Text

    Tuesday; Tue

    u

    Day number of week (1 = Monday, …​, 7 = Sunday)

    Number

    1

    a

    AM/PM marker

    Text

    PM

    H

    Hour in day (0-23)

    Number

    0

    k

    Hour in day (1-24)

    Number

    24

    K

    Hour in am/pm (0-11)

    Number

    0

    h

    Hour in am/pm (1-12)

    Number

    12

    m

    Minute in hour

    Number

    30

    s

    Second in minute

    Number

    55

    S

    Millisecond

    Number

    970

    z

    Time zone

    General time zone

    Pacific Standard Time; PST; GMT-08:00

    Z

    Time zone

    RFC 822 time zone

    -0800

    X

    Time zone

    ISO 8601 time zone

    -08; -0800; -08:00

    '

    Escape for text/id

    Delimiter

    (none)

    ''

    Single quote

    Literal

    '

    The number of symbol letters you specify also determines the format. For example, if the "zz" pattern results in "PDT", then the "zzzz" pattern generates "Pacific Daylight Time". The following table summarizes these rules:

    Table 11. Rules for Date Format Usage (Java)
    Presentation Processing Number of Pattern Letters Form

    Text

    Formatting

    1 - 3

    Short or abbreviated form, if one exists.

    Text

    Formatting

    >= 4

    full form

    Text

    Parsing

    >= 1

    both forms

    Year

    Formatting

    2

    truncated to 2 digits

    Year

    Formatting

    1 or >= 3

    interpreted as Number.

    Year

    Parsing

    1

    interpreted literally

    Year

    Parsing

    2

    Interpreted relative to the century within 80 years before or 20 years after the time when the SimpleDateFormat instance is created.

    Year

    Parsing

    >= 3

    interpreted literally

    Month

    Both

    1-2

    interpreted as a Number

    Month

    Parsing

    >= 3

    Interpreted as Text (using Roman numbers, abbreviated month name - if exists, or full month name).

    Month

    Formatting

    3

    Interpreted as Text (using Roman numbers, or abbreviated month name - if exists).

    Month

    Formatting

    >= 4

    Interpreted as Text (full month name).

    Number

    Formatting

    minimum number of required digits

    shorter numbers are padded with zeros

    Number

    Parsing

    The number of pattern letters is ignored (unless needed to separate two adjacent fields).

    any form

    General time zone

    Both

    1-3

    Short or abbreviated form, if it has a name. Otherwise, GMT offset value (GMT[sign][[0]0-23]:[00-59]).

    General time zone

    Both

    >= 4

    Full form, if it has a name; otherwise, GMT offset value (GMT[sign][[0]0-23]:[00-59]).

    General time zone

    Parsing

    >= 1

    RFC 822 time zone form is allowed.

    RFC 822 time zone

    Both

    >= 1

    RFC 822 4-digit time zone format is used ([sign][0-23][00-59]).

    RFC 822 time zone

    Parsing

    >= 1

    General time zone form is allowed.

    Examples of date format patterns and resulting dates follow:

    Table 12. Date and Time Format Patterns and Results (Java)
    Date and Time Pattern Result

    "yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss z"

    2001.07.04 AD at 12:08:56 PDT

    "EEE, MMM d, ''yy"

    Wed, Jul 4, '01

    "h:mm a"

    12:08 PM

    "hh 'o''clock' a, zzzz"

    12 o’clock PM, Pacific Daylight Time

    "K:mm a, z"

    0:08 PM, PDT

    "yyyyy.MMMMM.dd GGG hh:mm aaa"

    02001.July.04 AD 12:08 PM

    "EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z"

    Wed, 4 Jul 2001 12:08:56 -0700

    "yyMMddHHmmssZ"

    010704120856-0700

    "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ"

    2001-07-04T12:08:56.235-0700

    The described format patterns are used both in metadata as the Format property and in CTL.

    Now the list of format pattern syntax for Joda follows:

    Table 13. Date Format Pattern Syntax (Joda)
    Symbol Meaning Presentation Examples

    G

    Era designator

    Text

    AD

    C

    Century of era (>=0)

    Number

    20

    Y

    Year of era (>=0)

    Year

    1996

    y

    Year

    Year

    1996

    x

    Week of weekyear

    Year

    1996

    M

    Month of year

    Month

    July; Jul; 07

    w

    Week of year

    Number

    27

    D

    Day of year

    Number

    189

    d

    Day of month

    Number

    10

    e

    Day of week

    Number

    2

    E

    Day of week

    Text

    Tuesday; Tue

    a

    Halfday of day

    Text

    PM

    H

    Hour of day (0-23)

    Number

    0

    k

    Clockhour of day (1-24)

    Number

    24

    K

    Hour of halfday (0-11)

    Number

    0

    h

    Clockhour of halfday (1-12)

    Number

    12

    m

    Minute of hour

    Number

    30

    s

    Second of minute

    Number

    55

    S

    Fraction of second

    Number

    970

    z

    Time zone

    Text

    Pacific Standard Time; PST

    Z

    Time zone offset/id

    Zone

    -0800; -08:00; America/Los_Angeles

    '

    Escape for text/id

    Delimiter

    (none)

    ''

    Single quote

    Literal

    '

    The number of symbol letters you specify also determines the format. The following table summarizes these rules:

    Table 14. Rules for Date Format Usage (Joda)
    Presentation Processing Number of Pattern Letters Form

    Text

    Formatting

    1 - 3

    Short or abbreviated form, if one exists.

    Text

    Formatting

    >= 4

    full form

    Text

    Parsing

    >= 1

    both forms

    Year

    Formatting

    2

    truncated to 2 digits

    Year

    Formatting

    1 or >= 3

    interpreted as Number

    Year

    Parsing

    >= 1

    interpreted literally

    Month

    Both

    1-2

    interpreted as Number

    Month

    Parsing

    >= 3

    Interpreted as Text (using Roman numbers, abbreviated month name - if exists, or full month name).

    Month

    Formatting

    3

    Interpreted as Text (using Roman numbers, or abbreviated month name - if exists).

    Month

    Formatting

    >= 4

    interpreted as Text (full month name)

    Number

    Formatting

    The minimum number of required digits.

    Shorter numbers are padded with zeros.

    Number

    Parsing

    >= 1

    any form

    Zone name

    Formatting

    1-3

    short or abbreviated form

    Zone name

    Formatting

    >= 4

    full form

    Time zone offset/id

    Formatting

    1

    Offset without a colon between hours and minutes.

    Time zone offset/id

    Formatting

    2

    Offset with a colon between hours and minutes.

    Time zone offset/id

    Formatting

    >= 3

    Full textual form like this: "Continent/City".

    Time zone offset/id

    Parsing

    1

    Offset without a colon between hours and minutes.

    Time zone offset/id

    Parsing

    2

    Offset with a colon between hours and minutes.

    Remember that parsing with any number of "z" letters, as well as parsing with the number of "Z" letters greater than or equal to 3 is not allowed.

    See information about data types in metadata and CTL (CTL2):

    They are also used in CTL functions. See:

    Numeric Format

    Scientific Notation

    Binary Formats

    When a text is parsed as any numeric data type or any numeric data type should be formatted to a text, format pattern can be specified. If no format pattern is specified, empty pattern is used and numbers still get parsed and formatted to text.

    There are differences in text parsing and number formatting between cases with an empty pattern and specified pattern.

    1. No pattern and default locale

      • Used when a pattern is empty and no locale is set.

      • Javolution TypeFormat is used for parsing

      • Formatting uses Java’s toString() function (e.g. Integer.toString())

      • Parsing uses Javolution library. It is typically faster than standard Java library but more strict: parsing "10,00" as number fails, parsing "10.00" as integer fails. The expected format for number type is <decimal>{'.'<fraction>}{'E|e'<exponent>}.

    2. A pattern or locale is set (the format from the documentation is used)

      • DecimalFormat for formatting and parsing.

      • Parsing depends on pattern, but e.g. 10,00 is parsed as 1000 (with empty pattern and US locale) and 10.00 will be parsed as valid integer (with value 10)

    Parsing and formatting are locale sensitive.

    In CloverDX, Java decimal format is used.

    Table 15. Numeric Format Pattern Syntax
    Symbol Location Localized? Meaning

    #

    Number

    Yes

    Digit, zero shows as absent

    0

    Number

    Yes

    Digit

    .

    Number

    Yes

    Decimal separator or monetary decimal separator

    -

    Number

    Yes

    Minus sign

    ,

    Number

    Yes

    Grouping separator

    E

    Number

    Yes

    Separates mantissa and exponent in scientific notation. Need not be quoted in prefix or suffix.

    ;

    Subpattern boundary

    Yes

    Separates positive and negative subpatterns

    %

    Prefix or suffix

    Yes

    Multiply by 100 and show as percentage

    ‰ (\u2030)

    Prefix or suffix

    Yes

    Multiply by 1000 and show as per mille value

    ¤ (\u00A4)

    Prefix or suffix

    No

    Currency sign, replaced by currency symbol. If doubled, replaced by international currency symbol. If present in a pattern, the monetary decimal separator is used instead of the decimal separator.

    '

    Prefix or suffix

    No

    Used to quote special characters in a prefix or suffix; for example, "'#'#" formats 123 to "#123". To create a single quote itself, use two in a row: "# o''clock".

    Both prefix and suffix are Unicode characters from \u0000 to \uFFFD, including the margins, but excluding special characters.

    Format pattern composes of subpatterns, prefixes, suffixes, etc. in the way shown in the following table:

    Table 16. BNF Diagram
    Format Components

    pattern

    subpattern{;subpattern}

    subpattern

    {prefix}integer{.fraction}{suffix}

    prefix

    '\\u0000'..'\\uFFFD' - specialCharacters

    suffix

    '\\u0000'..'\\uFFFD' - specialCharacters

    integer

    '#'* '0'* '0'

    fraction

    '0'* '#'*

    Explanation of these symbols follow:

    Table 17. Used Notation
    Notation Description

    X*

    0 or more instances of X

    (X | Y)

    either X or Y

    X..Y

    any character from X up to Y, inclusive

    S - T

    characters in S, except those in T

    {X}

    X is optional

    The grouping separator is commonly used for thousands, but in some countries it separates ten-thousands. The grouping size is a constant number of digits between the grouping characters, such as 3 for 100,000,000 or 4 for 1,0000,0000. If you supply a pattern with multiple grouping characters, the interval between the last one and the end of the integer is the one that is used. So "#,##,###,####" == "######,####" == "##,####,####".

    Remember also that formatting is locale sensitive. See the following table in which results are different for different locales:

    Table 18. Locale-Sensitive Formatting
    Pattern Locale Result

    ###,###.###

    en.US

    123,456.789

    ###,###.###

    de.DE

    123.456,789

    ###,###.###

    fr.FR

    123 456,789

    For a deeper look on handling numbers, consult the official Java documentation of NumberFormat, and DecimalFormat.
    Space as group separator

    If locale with space as group separator is used, there should be a hard space (char 160) between digits to parse the number correctly.
    Scientific Notation

    Numbers in scientific notation are expressed as the product of a mantissa and a power of ten.

    For example, 1234 can be expressed as 1.234 x 103.

    The mantissa is often in the range 1.0 <= x < 10.0, but it’s not required.

    Numeric data types can be instructed to format and parse scientific notation only via a pattern. In a pattern, the exponent character immediately followed by one or more digit characters indicates scientific notation.

    Example: "0.###E0" formats the number 1234 as "1.234E3".

    Examples of numeric pattern and results follow:

    Table 19. Numeric Format Patterns and Results
    Value Pattern Result

    1234

    0.###E0

    1.234E3

    12345

    ##0.#####E0[1]

    12.345E3

    123456

    ##0.#####E0[1]

    123.456E3

    1234567

    ##0.#####E0[1]

    1.234567E6

    12345

    #0.#####E0[2]

    1.2345E4

    123456

    #0.#####E0[2]

    12.3456E4

    1234567

    #0.#####E0[2]

    1.234567E6

    0.00123

    00.###E0[3]

    12.3E-4

    123456

    ##0.##E0[4]

    12.346E3
    1

    #x00A0;Maximum number of integer digits is 3, minimum number of integer digits is 1, maximum is greater than minimum, thus exponent will be a multiplicate of three (maximum number of integer digits) in each of the cases.
    2

     Maximum number of integer digits is 2, minimum number of integer digits is 1, maximum is greater than minimum, thus exponent will be a multiplicate of two (maximum number of integer digits) in each of the cases.
    3

     Maximum number of integer digits is 2, minimum number of integer digits is 2, maximum is equal to minimum, minimum number of integer digits will be achieved by adjusting the exponent.
    4

     Maximum number of integer digits is 3, maximum number of fraction digits is 2, number of significant digits is sum of maximum number of integer digits and maximum number of fraction digits, thus, the number of significant digits is as shown (5 digits).
    Binary Formats

    The table below presents a list of available formats:

    Table 20. Available Binary Formats
    Type Name Format Length

    integer

    BIG_ENDIAN

    two’s-complement, big-endian

    variable

    LITTLE_ENDIAN

    two’s-complement, little-endian

    PACKED_DECIMAL

    packed decimal

    floating-point

    DOUBLE_BIG_ENDIAN

    IEEE 754, big-endian

    8 bytes

    DOUBLE_LITTLE_ENDIAN

    IEEE 754, little-endian

    FLOAT_BIG_ENDIAN

    IEEE 754, big-endian

    4 bytes

    FLOAT_LITTLE_ENDIAN

    IEEE 754, little-endian

    The floating-point formats can be used with numeric and decimal datatypes. The integer formats can be used with integer and long datatypes. The exception to the rule is the decimal datatype, which also supports integer formats (BIG_ENDIAN, LITTLE_ENDIAN and PACKED_DECIMAL). When an integer format is used with the decimal datatype, implicit decimal point is set according to the Scale attribute. For example, if the stored value is 123456789 and Scale is set to 3, the value of the field will be 123456.789.

    To use a binary format, create a metadata field with one of the supported datatypes and set the Format attribute to the name of the format prefixed with "BINARY:", e.g. to use the PACKED_DECIMAL format, create a decimal field and set its Format to "BINARY:PACKED_DECIMAL" by choosing it from the list of available formats.

    For the fixed-length formats (double and float) also the Size attribute must be set accordingly.

    Currently, binary data formats can only be handled by ComplexDataReader and the deprecated FixLenDataReader.

    Boolean Format

    The format for boolean data type specified in Metadata consists of up to four parts separated from each other by the same delimiter.

    This delimiter must also be at the beginning and the end of the Format string. On the other hand, the delimiter must not be contained in the values of the boolean field.

    If you do not use the same character at the beginning and the end of the Format string, the whole string will serve as a regular expression for the true value. The default values (false|F|FALSE|NO|N|f|0|no|n) will be the only ones interpreted as false.

    Values that match neither the Format regular expression (interpreted as true only) nor the mentioned default values for false will be interpreted as error. In such a case, graph would fail.

    If we symbolically display the format as:

    /A/B/C/D/

    the meaning of each part is as follows:

    1. If the value of the boolean field matches the pattern of the first part (A) and does not match the second part (B), it is interpreted as true.

    2. If the value of the boolean field does not match the pattern of the first part (A), but matches the second part (B), it is interpreted as false.

    3. If the value of the boolean field matches both the pattern of the first part (A) and, at the same time, the pattern of the second part (B), it is interpreted as true.

    4. If the value of the boolean field matches neither the pattern of the first part (A), nor the pattern of the second part (B), it is interpreted as error. In such a case, the graph fails.

    All parts are optional; however, if any of them is omitted, all of the others that are at its right side must also be omitted.

    If the second part (B) is omitted, the following default values are the only ones that are parsed as boolean false:

    false|F|FALSE|NO|N|f|0|no|n

    If there is not any Format, the following default values are the only ones that are parsed as boolean true:

    true|T|TRUE|YES|Y|t|1|yes|y

    • The third part (C) is a formatting string used to express boolean true for all matched strings. If the third part is omitted, either the true word is used (if the first part (A) is complicated regular expression), or the first substring from the first part is used (if the first part is a serie of simple substrings separated by pipe, e.g.: Iagree|sure|yes|ok - all these values are formatted as Iagree).

    • The fourth part (D) is a formatting string used to express boolean false for all matched strings. If the fourth part is omitted, either the false word is used (if the second part (B) is complicated regular expression), or the first substring from the second part is used (if the second part is a serie of simple substrings separated by pipe, e.g.: Idisagree|nope|no - all these values are formatted as Idisagree).

    String Format

    Such string pattern is a regular expression that allows or prohibits parsing of a string.

    The combo box offers several pre-filled regular expressions.

    The last option (excel:raw) serves to read more precise values from .xlsx files. See documentation on SpreadsheetDataReader.

    Example 6. String Format

    If an input file contains a string field and a Format property is \\w{4} for this field, only the string whose length is 4 will be parsed.

    Thus, when a Format property is specified for a string, Data policy may cause a failure of the graph (if Data policy is Strict).

    If Data policy is set to Controlled or Lenient, the records in which this string value matches the specified Format property are read and the others are skipped (either sent to Console or to the rejected port).