The TIME category

The TIME category lists characters and symbols that format date and time values.

This information includes the names and abbreviations for days of the week and months of the year. It also includes special representations for dates, time (12-hour and 24-hour), and DATETIME values.

These representations can include the names of eras (as in the Japanese Imperial era system) and non-Gregorian calendars (such as the Arabic lunar calendar). The locale specifies the calendar (Gregorian, Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese Imperial, and so on) for reading or printing a month, day, or year.

If the locale supports era-based dates and times, the TIME category defines the full and abbreviated era names and special date and time representations. For more information, see Alternative date formats and Alternative time formats.

This date and time information applies to the display formats of data in DATE and DATETIME columns within a client application.

Important: Information in the TIME category does not affect the internal format of the DATE and DATETIME data types in the database.