# How to make Date objects in "mm-dd-yyyy" format?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-make-date-objects-in-mm-dd-yyyy-format/53175>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** dates, dataframes\
**Created:** [January 11, 2021, 7:04pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-make-date-objects-in-mm-dd-yyyy-format/53175 "2021-01-11T19:04:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Michael\_Barmann](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/michael_barmann/32/20389_2.png) [@Michael\_Barmann](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Michael_Barmann)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 7:04pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-make-date-objects-in-mm-dd-yyyy-format/53175/1 "2021-01-11T19:04:08Z")

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I’m trying to create some Dates which I want to display in “mm-dd-yyyy” format. The documentation ([https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/stdlib/Dates/#Constructors](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/stdlib/Dates/#Constructors)) only seems to give examples where the dates are in “yyyy-mm-dd” format. Here’s what I tried:

```julia
using Dates
df = DateFormat("mm-dd-yyyy")
date = Date("01-03-2020", df)

```

This displays as `2020-01-03`, but I want it to display as `01-03-2020` (i.e. January 3rd, 2020). I also want to display dates in `mm-dd-yyyy` format when they appear in a DataFrame. Is there is a simple way to do this?

Edit: I just learned from here [Wikibooks](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introducing_Julia/Working_with_dates_and_times) that the following will display the date in “mm-dd-yyyy” format as a _String_:

`Dates.format(date, "mm-dd-yyyy")`

But is there a way to just change the format in which Date objects are displayed, without having to create a new String object?

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**Author:** ![contradict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ac91a4/32.png) [@contradict](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/contradict)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 7:59pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-make-date-objects-in-mm-dd-yyyy-format/53175/2 "2021-01-11T19:59:40Z")

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Looks like date printing is [hard-coded](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/master/stdlib/Dates/src/io.jl#L601) to that format.

You could define your own type with a new [show](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/types/#man-custom-pretty-printing) method:

```julia
using Dates
df = DateFormat("mm-dd-yyyy")
date = Date("01-03-2020", df)

struct FormattedDate
    date::Date
    format::DateFormat
end
FormattedDate(d::Date) = FormattedDate(d, DateFormat("mm-dd-yyyy"))

Base.show(io::IO, fd::FormattedDate) = Dates.format(io, fd.date, fd.format)

FormattedDate(date)

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Michael\_Barmann](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/michael_barmann/32/20389_2.png) [@Michael\_Barmann](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Michael_Barmann)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 5:27pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-make-date-objects-in-mm-dd-yyyy-format/53175/3 "2021-01-12T17:27:00Z")

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Thank you! This is very helpful 🙂