| Specifier | Description |
|---|---|
| %a | Abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat) |
| %b | Abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec) |
| %c | Month, numeric (0..12) |
| %D | Day of the month with English suffix (0th, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, …) |
| %d | Day of the month, numeric (00..31) |
| %e | Day of the month, numeric (0..31) |
| %f | Microseconds (000000..999999) |
| %H | Hour (00..23) |
| %h | Hour (01..12) |
| %I | Hour (01..12) |
| %i | Minutes, numeric (00..59) |
| %j | Day of year (001..366) |
| %k | Hour (0..23) |
| %l | Hour (1..12) |
| %M | Month name (January..December) |
| %m | Month, numeric (00..12) |
| %p | AM or PM |
| %r | Time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss followed by AM or PM) |
| %S | Seconds (00..59) |
| %s | Seconds (00..59) |
| %T | Time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss) |
| %U | Week (00..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week |
| %u | Week (00..53), where Monday is the first day of the week |
| %V | Week (01..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week; used with %X |
| %v | Week (01..53), where Monday is the first day of the week; used with %x |
| %W | Weekday name (Sunday..Saturday) |
| %w | Day of the week (0=Sunday..6=Saturday) |
| %X | Year for the week where Sunday is the first day of the week, numeric, four digits; used with %V |
| %x | Year for the week, where Monday is the first day of the week, numeric, four digits; used with %v |
| %Y | Year, numeric, four digits |
| %y | Year, numeric (two digits) |
| %% | A literal “%” character |
| %x | x, for any “x” not listed above |
The %v, %V, %x, and %X format specifiers are available as of MySQL 3.23.8. %f is available as of MySQL 4.1.1.
Ranges for the month and day specifiers begin with zero due to the fact that MySQL permits the storing of incomplete dates such as '2014-00-00' (as of MySQL 3.23).
As of MySQL 4.1.21, the language used for day and month names and abbreviations is controlled by the value of the lc_time_names system variable (Section 9.8, “MySQL Server Locale Support”).
As of MySQL 4.1.23, DATE_FORMAT() returns a string with a character set and collation given by character_set_connection and collation_connection so that it can return month and weekday names containing non-ASCII characters. Before 4.1.23, the return value is a binary string.