Go language time formatting uses a specific reference time Mon Jan 2 15:04:05 MST 2006 to define format strings. Common formats include: 2006-01-02 for year, month and day, 15:04:05 for hours, minute and second, 3:04:05 PM for morning/pm, MST for time zone, and 000 for milliseconds. When writing custom formats, you must strictly follow template rules, such as "2006/01/02 15:04:05". Note: minutes are 04, not mm, cannot be used in YYYY-MM-DD format, PM cannot be replaced with other forms, month must be 01 instead of MM, 12/24 hour system uses 3 or 15 respectively, spaces and punctuation must be exactly matched, and the time zone must be set correctly. For example, after time.Date generates time, call the Format method to output formatted results, such as 2025-04-05 14:30:45 UTC. After mastering the reference time structure, you can use it flexibly.
Time formatting is a very practical but confusing part in Go language, especially when you first come into contact with time.Format
. It does not use format strings (such as YYYY-MM-DD
) like other languages, but defines the format through a specific reference time.

This reference time is: Mon Jan 2 15:04:05 MST 2006
In other words, you have to write the format string in the form of this "template" method so that Go can correctly understand what format you want to output.
Common format examples
Here are some commonly used format writing and corresponding results:

- Year, Month, Date:
2006-01-02
→ The output is similar to2025-04-05
- Time, minute and second:
15:04:05
→ The output is similar to14:30:45
- 12-hour system with morning/pm:
3:04:05 PM
→ For example,2:30:45 PM
- Time with time zone:
2006-01-02 15:04:05 MST
→ For example,2025-04-05 14:30:45 CST
- Accurate to milliseconds:
2006-01-02 15:04:05.000
→ For example,2025-04-05 14:30:45.123
You can combine these parts as you want, just remember that each number represents a part in the template.
How to write your own format string?
Suppose you want a format like this: 2025/04/05 14:30:45
, you should write the format string like this:

layout := "2006/01/02 15:04:05"
Then use time.Now().Format(layout)
to get the result you want.
A few details need to be paid attention to:
- It must be written strictly in the template format, such as the minute is
04
, notmm
- If you write it as a common format like
YYYY-MM-DD
, Go will not recognize it -
PM
should be used in the morning and afternoon, and cannot be written asAM
or other forms.
Where to make mistakes
- Month is written as
MM
: Many people will subconsciously write asMM
to indicate month, but in Go, it must be written as01
. - The wrong format for hourly writing :
3
or03
should be used for 12-hour system, and15
should be used for 24-hour system. - Ignore spaces or punctuation : the spaces, colons, and hyphens in the format string must correspond one by one.
- Time zone handling chaos : If you need to display time zone abbreviation (such as CST), remember to make sure the time object has the correct time zone information set.
For example:
t := time.Date(2025, 4, 5, 14, 30, 45, 0, time.UTC) fmt.Println(t.Format("2006-01-02 15:04:05 MST")) // Output 2025-04-05 14:30:45 UTC
Basically that's it. Go's time formatting is a bit tangled at first, but once you remember that reference time, it's much better later.
The above is the detailed content of Go time.Format examples. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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