I'm trying to convert Active Support timezone original format into a string. I want to store it in an array of characters then parse each needed data individually.
Time.zone = current_user.timezone
date_and_time = Time.zone.now
Now
date_and_time = Thu, 21 Apr 2016 20:58:04 PDT -07:00
Ruby method ( to_s ) does not convert it. I found other ways to convert it to but all of them will change the format to numbers only, I want the day to stay the same because I will store it in a variable then use it in a different method.
You can use .to_formatted_s(DATE_FORMAT) for this.
time = Time.now # => Thu Jan 18 06:10:17 CST 2007
time.to_formatted_s(:db) # => "2007-01-18 06:10:17"
time.to_formatted_s(:long) # => "January 18, 2007 06:10"
time.to_formatted_s(:long_ordinal) # => "January 18th, 2007 06:10"
time.to_formatted_s(:rfc822) # => "Thu, 18 Jan 2007 06:10:17 -0600"
time.to_formatted_s(:iso8601) # => "2007-01-18T06:10:17-06:00"
A list of all DATE_FORMATS and more information can be found here:
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/Time.html#method-i-to_formatted_s
You can try this
date_and_time.strftime("%a %d %b %Y")
Also You can check this guide, to get format you want
You should get what you want using this :
date_and_time.strftime("%a %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S UTC %:z")
Please see strftime Docs for more info
Explanation
Reason for hardcoding UTC is so that according to the docs
%z - Time zone as hour and minute offset from UTC
So i believe it should be UTC all the time.
Related
I have a record foo in the database which has :start_time and :timezone attributes.
The :start_time is a Time in UTC - 2001-01-01 14:20:00, for example.
The :timezone is a string - America/New_York, for example.
I want to create a new Time object with the value of :start_time but whose timezone is specified by :timezone. I do not want to load the :start_time and then convert to :timezone, because Rails will be clever and update the time from UTC to be consistent with that timezone.
Currently,
t = foo.start_time
=> 2000-01-01 14:20:00 UTC
t.zone
=> "UTC"
t.in_time_zone("America/New_York")
=> Sat, 01 Jan 2000 09:20:00 EST -05:00
Instead, I want to see
=> Sat, 01 Jan 2000 14:20:00 EST -05:00
ie. I want to do:
t
=> 2000-01-01 14:20:00 UTC
t.zone = "America/New_York"
=> "America/New_York"
t
=> 2000-01-01 14:20:00 EST
Sounds like you want something along the lines of
ActiveSupport::TimeZone.new('America/New_York').local_to_utc(t)
This says convert this local time (using the zone) to utc. If you have Time.zone set then you can of course to
Time.zone.local_to_utc(t)
This won't use the timezone attached to t - it assumes that it's local to the time zone you are converting from.
One edge case to guard against here is DST transitions: the local time you specify may not exist or may be ambiguous.
I've just faced the same problem and here is what I'm going to do:
t = t.asctime.in_time_zone("America/New_York")
Here is the documentation on asctime
If you're using Rails, here is another method along the lines of Eric Walsh's answer:
def set_in_timezone(time, zone)
Time.use_zone(zone) { time.to_datetime.change(offset: Time.zone.now.strftime("%z")) }
end
You need to add the time offset to your time after you convert it.
The easiest way to do this is:
t = Foo.start_time.in_time_zone("America/New_York")
t -= t.utc_offset
I am not sure why you would want to do this, though it is probably best to actually work with times the way they are built. I guess some background on why you need to shift time and timezones would be helpful.
Actually, I think you need to subtract the offset after you convert it, as in:
1.9.3p194 :042 > utc_time = Time.now.utc
=> 2013-05-29 16:37:36 UTC
1.9.3p194 :043 > local_time = utc_time.in_time_zone('America/New_York')
=> Wed, 29 May 2013 12:37:36 EDT -04:00
1.9.3p194 :044 > desired_time = local_time-local_time.utc_offset
=> Wed, 29 May 2013 16:37:36 EDT -04:00
Depends on where you are going to use this Time.
When your time is an attribute
If time is used as an attribute, you can use the same date_time_attribute gem:
class Task
include DateTimeAttribute
date_time_attribute :due_at
end
task = Task.new
task.due_at_time_zone = 'Moscow'
task.due_at # => Mon, 03 Feb 2013 22:00:00 MSK +04:00
task.due_at_time_zone = 'London'
task.due_at # => Mon, 03 Feb 2013 22:00:00 GMT +00:00
When you set a separate variable
Use the same date_time_attribute gem:
my_date_time = DateTimeAttribute::Container.new(Time.zone.now)
my_date_time.date_time # => 2001-02-03 22:00:00 KRAT +0700
my_date_time.time_zone = 'Moscow'
my_date_time.date_time # => 2001-02-03 22:00:00 MSK +0400
Here's another version that worked better for me than the current answers:
now = Time.now
# => 2020-04-15 12:07:10 +0200
now.strftime("%F %T.%N").in_time_zone("Europe/London")
# => Wed, 15 Apr 2020 12:07:10 BST +01:00
It carries over nanoseconds using "%N". If you desire another precision, see this strftime reference.
The question's about Rails but it seems, like me, not everyone here is on the ActiveSupport train, so yet another option:
irb(main):001:0> require "time"
=> true
irb(main):003:0> require "tzinfo"
=> true
irb(main):004:0> t = Time.parse("2000-01-01 14:20:00 UTC")
=> 2000-01-01 14:20:00 UTC
irb(main):005:0> tz = TZInfo::Timezone.get("America/New_York")
=> #<TZInfo::DataTimezone: America/New_York>
irb(main):008:0> utc = tz.local_to_utc(t)
=> 2000-01-01 19:20:00 UTC
irb(main):009:0> tz.utc_to_local(utc)
=> 2000-01-01 14:20:00 -0500
irb(main):010:0>
local_to_utc not doing the opposite of utc_to_local might look like a bug but it is at least documented: https://github.com/tzinfo/tzinfo says:
The offset of the time is ignored - it is treated as if it were a local time for the time zone
I managed to do this by calling change with the desired time zone:
>> t = Time.current.in_time_zone('America/New_York')
=> Mon, 08 Aug 2022 12:04:36.934007000 EDT -04:00
>> t.change(zone: 'Etc/UTC')
=> Mon, 08 Aug 2022 12:04:36.934007000 UTC +00:00
https://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/TimeWithZone.html#method-i-change
def relative_time_in_time_zone(time, zone)
DateTime.parse(time.strftime("%d %b %Y %H:%M:%S #{time.in_time_zone(zone).formatted_offset}"))
end
Quick little function I came up with to solve the job. If someone has a more efficient way of doing this please post it!
I spent significant time struggling with TimeZones as well, and after tinkering with Ruby 1.9.3 realized that you don't need to convert to a named timezone symbol before converting:
my_time = Time.now
west_coast_time = my_time.in_time_zone(-8) # Pacific Standard Time
east_coast_time = my_time.in_time_zone(-5) # Eastern Standard Time
What this implies is that you can focus on getting the appropriate time setup first in the region you want, the way you would think about it (at least in my head I partition it this way), and then convert at the end to the zone you want to verify your business logic with.
This also works for Ruby 2.3.1.
I have created few helper methods one of which just does the same thing as is asked by the original author of the post at Ruby / Rails - Change the timezone of a Time, without changing the value.
Also I have documented few peculiarities I observed and also these helpers contains methods to completely ignore automatic day-light savings applicable while time-conversions which is not available out-of-the-box in Rails framework:
def utc_offset_of_given_time(time, ignore_dst: false)
# Correcting the utc_offset below
utc_offset = time.utc_offset
if !!ignore_dst && time.dst?
utc_offset_ignoring_dst = utc_offset - 3600 # 3600 seconds = 1 hour
utc_offset = utc_offset_ignoring_dst
end
utc_offset
end
def utc_offset_of_given_time_ignoring_dst(time)
utc_offset_of_given_time(time, ignore_dst: true)
end
def change_offset_in_given_time_to_given_utc_offset(time, utc_offset)
formatted_utc_offset = ActiveSupport::TimeZone.seconds_to_utc_offset(utc_offset, false)
# change method accepts :offset option only on DateTime instances.
# and also offset option works only when given formatted utc_offset
# like -0500. If giving it number of seconds like -18000 it is not
# taken into account. This is not mentioned clearly in the documentation
# , though.
# Hence the conversion to DateTime instance first using to_datetime.
datetime_with_changed_offset = time.to_datetime.change(offset: formatted_utc_offset)
Time.parse(datetime_with_changed_offset.to_s)
end
def ignore_dst_in_given_time(time)
return time unless time.dst?
utc_offset = time.utc_offset
if utc_offset < 0
dst_ignored_time = time - 1.hour
elsif utc_offset > 0
dst_ignored_time = time + 1.hour
end
utc_offset_ignoring_dst = utc_offset_of_given_time_ignoring_dst(time)
dst_ignored_time_with_corrected_offset =
change_offset_in_given_time_to_given_utc_offset(dst_ignored_time, utc_offset_ignoring_dst)
# A special case for time in timezones observing DST and which are
# ahead of UTC. For e.g. Tehran city whose timezone is Iran Standard Time
# and which observes DST and which is UTC +03:30. But when DST is active
# it becomes UTC +04:30. Thus when a IRDT (Iran Daylight Saving Time)
# is given to this method say '05-04-2016 4:00pm' then this will convert
# it to '05-04-2016 5:00pm' and update its offset to +0330 which is incorrect.
# The updated UTC offset is correct but the hour should retain as 4.
if utc_offset > 0
dst_ignored_time_with_corrected_offset -= 1.hour
end
dst_ignored_time_with_corrected_offset
end
Examples which can be tried on rails console or a ruby script after wrapping the above methods in a class or module:
dd1 = '05-04-2016 4:00pm'
dd2 = '07-11-2016 4:00pm'
utc_zone = ActiveSupport::TimeZone['UTC']
est_zone = ActiveSupport::TimeZone['Eastern Time (US & Canada)']
tehran_zone = ActiveSupport::TimeZone['Tehran']
utc_dd1 = utc_zone.parse(dd1)
est_dd1 = est_zone.parse(dd1)
tehran_dd1 = tehran_zone.parse(dd1)
utc_dd1.dst?
est_dd1.dst?
tehran_dd1.dst?
ignore_dst = true
utc_to_est_time = utc_dd1.in_time_zone(est_zone.name)
if utc_to_est_time.dst? && !!ignore_dst
utc_to_est_time = ignore_dst_in_given_time(utc_to_est_time)
end
puts utc_to_est_time
Hope this helps.
This worked well for me
date = '23/11/2020'
time = '08:00'
h, m = time.split(':')
timezone = 'Europe/London'
date.to_datetime.in_time_zone(timezone).change(hour: h, min: m)
This changes the timezone to 'EST' without changing the time:
time = DateTime.current
Time.find_zone("EST").local(
time.year,
time.month,
time.day,
time.hour,
time.min,
time.sec,
)
Time.parse returns a Time object that does not have a timezone. I would like to keep the timezone information. Is there a better way to do this then the following code?
def parse_with_timezone( string_input)
/(.*)([+-]\d\d):?(\d\d)$/.match( string_input) do |match|
tz = ActiveSupport::TimeZone[match[2].to_i.hours + match[3].to_i.minutes]
tz.parse( match[1])
end
end
The input is a string like this "2012-12-25T00:00:00+09:00". This function outputs a TimeWithZone object.
Were you looking for a specific timezone of the current local one?
# Current zone
1.9.3p194> Time.zone.parse('2012-12-25T00:00:00+09:00')
=> Mon, 24 Dec 2012 15:00:00 UTC +00:00
Console was set at UTC for above but will work for whatever you have configured
# Specific timezone
1.9.3p194> Time.find_zone('Wellington').parse('2012-12-25T00:00:00+09:00')
=> Tue, 25 Dec 2012 04:00:00 NZDT +13:00
I notice you're trying to pass +9 so as an example
1.9.3p194> Time.zone = 'Tokyo'
=> "Tokyo"
1.9.3p194> Time.zone.parse('2012-12-25T00:00:00+09:00')
=> Tue, 25 Dec 2012 00:00:00 JST +09:00
Gives you the right result.
What about the Rails Timezone API: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/TimeZone.html
I prefer to use Chronic for all my date/time parsing needs.
Wed Sep 22 13:15:02 -0400 2010 to this format 2010-08-23 13:15:02 -0400
The left is Time.now
The right is 30.days.ago =\
You can use the to_s(:db) method in Time class to convert it to a database-friendly format.
Time.now.to_s(:db) # => "2010-09-22 17:50:41"
If you really need the time zone offset info, you could add a custom format to Time::DATE_FORMATS, e.g.
Time::DATE_FORMATS[:db_with_zone_offset] = lambda { |time|
time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S #{time.formatted_offset(false)}")
}
after which you can simply call
Time.now.to_s(:db_with_zone_offset) => # "2010-09-22 17:48:21 +0000"
Both are different data types.
>> Time.now.class
=> Time
>> 30.days.ago.class
=> ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone
use the strftime method to format it.
If you want to have format in database format, then you can use:
Time.now
=> Wed Sep 22 19:54:24 +0200 2010
Time.now.to_s(:db)
=> "2010-09-22 19:54:48"
Time.now.utc.to_s(:db)
=> "2010-09-22 17:55:16"
I am a RoR newbie. I tried a lot of things, finally came to following:
<td>
<%= Date.strptime(request.baseline_start_date, "%Y-%M-%D %H:%M:%S %Z").strftime("%M/%D/%Y")%>
</td>
But this is also giving me an error:
$_ value need to be String (nil given)
But I know that request.baseline_start_date gives me value (tried printing it separately). I don't know which one it is saying as nil given.
Any suggestions on how I can achieve format conversion?
In Rails you can use the to_time function on a string to convert it into a Date object:
'2012-11-14 14:27:46'.to_time.strftime('%B %e at %l:%M %p')
#=> "November 14 at 2:27 PM"
For a handy, interactive reference guide, refer to http://www.foragoodstrftime.com/
Date.strptime(
"2009-04-24 18:33:41 UTC",
"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z"
).strftime("%m/%d/%Y")
# => "04/24/2009"
I think maybe you just got the capitalization on your format strings wrong.
Check the active support documentation and examples at:
http://apidock.com/rails/ActiveSupport/CoreExtensions/DateTime/Conversions/to_formatted_s
Examples
datetime = DateTime.civil(2007, 12, 4, 0, 0, 0, 0) # => Tue, 04 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000
datetime.to_formatted_s(:db) # => "2007-12-04 00:00:00"
datetime.to_s(:db) # => "2007-12-04 00:00:00"
datetime.to_s(:number) # => "20071204000000"
datetime.to_formatted_s(:short) # => "04 Dec 00:00"
datetime.to_formatted_s(:long) # => "December 04, 2007 00:00"
datetime.to_formatted_s(:long_ordinal) # => "December 4th, 2007 00:00"
datetime.to_formatted_s(:rfc822) # => "Tue, 04 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000"
Or if you really want to customise it, define the helper like:
def custom_format(time)
Time::DATE_FORMATS[:w3cdtf] = lambda { |time| time.strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S# {time.formatted_offset}") }
end
You can use the String#to_time (or Date#to_time) function in ActiveSupport to convert the string into a Time (or Date) object. Then use strftime as you have already.
Ive written a really nice gem that simplifies the whole process, and makes date formatting DRY.
Check it out at:
http://github.com/platform45/easy_dates
What I have done is add an initializer named conversions.rb in config/initializer
After that Add a line like follows:
ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Time::Conversions::DATE_FORMATS.update(:<name> => '<formatting>')
From there on you can render your datetime using your format with:
dateVar.to_s(:<name>)
There is a handy list here of the formatting tokens
Thanks a lot for the reply. My problem is, the output seems to be already string and i have to convert from date in string to another format.
When I look at the date stored in database (Oracle) it is mm/dd/yy, but when i get it displayed, it adds the timestamp and timezone.
I tried setting the default in Configuration\environment.rb as
ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Date::Conversions::DATE_FORMATS.merge!(
:default => '%d %b %Y'
)
But that also doesn't seem to help.
At the end, if I just get the string to convert from Timezone format to mm/dd/yyyy, that is enough.
Rails' ActiveSupport module extends the builtin ruby Time class with a number of methods.
Notably, there is the to_formatted_s method, which lets you write Time.now.to_formatted_s(:db) to get a string in Database format, rather than having to write ugly strftime format-strings everywhere.
My question is, is there a way to go backwards?
Something like Time.parse_formatted_s(:db) which would parse a string in Database format, returning a new Time object. This seems like something that rails should be providing, but if it is, I can't find it.
Am I just not able to find it, or do I need to write it myself?
Thanks
It looks like ActiveSupport does provide the parsing methods you are looking for (and I was looking for too), after all! — at least if the string you are trying to parse is a standard, ISO-8601-formatted (:db format) date.
If the date you're trying to parse is already in your local time zone, it's really easy!
> Time.zone.parse('2009-09-24 08:28:43')
=> Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:28:43 PDT -07:00
> Time.zone.parse('2009-09-24 08:28:43').class
=> ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone
and that time-zone-aware time can then easily be converted to UTC
> Time.zone.parse('2009-09-24 08:28:43').utc
=> 2009-09-24 15:28:43 UTC
or to other time zones:
> ActiveSupport::TimeZone.us_zones.map(&:name)
=> ["Hawaii", "Alaska", "Pacific Time (US & Canada)", "Arizona", "Mountain Time (US & Canada)", "Central Time (US & Canada)", "Eastern Time (US & Canada)", "Indiana (East)"]
> Time.zone.parse('2009-09-24 08:28:43').utc.in_time_zone('Eastern Time (US & Canada)')
=> Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:28:43 EDT -04:00
If the date string you're trying to parse is in UTC, on the other hand, it doesn't look like there's any method to parse it directly into a TimeWithZone, but I was able to work around that be first using DateTime.strptime...
If the date you're trying to parse is in UTC and you want it to stay as UTC, you can use:
> DateTime.strptime('2009-09-24 08:28:43', '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S').to_time
=> 2009-09-24 08:28:43 UTC
If the date you're trying to parse is in UTC and you want it converted to your default time zone, you can use:
> DateTime.strptime('2009-09-24 08:28:43', '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S').to_time.in_time_zone
=> Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:28:43 PDT -07:00
It looks like it can even parse other formats, such as the strange format that Time#to_s produces:
irb -> Time.zone.parse('Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:18:08').to_s(:db)
=> "2009-09-23 09:18:08"
irb -> Time.zone.parse('Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:18:08 EDT').to_s(:db)
=> "2009-09-23 06:18:08"
I'm quite impressed.
Here are some more examples from [http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/TimeWithZone.html][1]:
Time.zone = 'Eastern Time (US & Canada)' # => 'Eastern Time (US & Canada)'
Time.zone.local(2007, 2, 10, 15, 30, 45) # => Sat, 10 Feb 2007 15:30:45 EST -05:00
Time.zone.parse('2007-02-10 15:30:45') # => Sat, 10 Feb 2007 15:30:45 EST -05:00
Time.zone.at(1170361845) # => Sat, 10 Feb 2007 15:30:45 EST -05:00
Time.zone.now # => Sun, 18 May 2008 13:07:55 EDT -04:00
Time.utc(2007, 2, 10, 20, 30, 45).in_time_zone # => Sat, 10 Feb 2007 15:30:45 EST -05:00
More documentation links for reference:
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/TimeWithZone.html
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/TimeZone.html
ActiveSupport::TimeZone.new('UTC').parse('2009-09-23 09:18:08')
=> Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:18:08 UTC +00:00
Rails 5 finally provides strptime!
value = '1999-12-31 14:00:00'
format = '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'
Time.zone.strptime(value, format)
# => Fri, 31 Dec 1999 14:00:00 HST -10:00
ActiveSupport::TimeZone.all.sample.strptime(value, format)
# => Fri, 31 Dec 1999 14:00:00 GST +04:00
I just ran into this as well and none of the above answers were satisfactory to me. Ideally one could use ActiveSupport::TimeZone just like Time and call .strptime on it with any arbitrary format and get back the correct TimeZone object. ActiveSupport::TimeZone.strptime doesn't exist so I created this monkeypatch:
class ActiveSupport::TimeZone
def strptime(str, fmt, now = self.now)
date_parts = Date._strptime(str, fmt)
return if date_parts.blank?
time = Time.strptime(str, fmt, now) rescue DateTime.strptime(str, fmt, now)
if date_parts[:offset].nil?
ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone.new(nil, self, time)
else
time.in_time_zone(self)
end
end
end
>> "2009-09-24".to_date
=> Thu, 24 Sep 2009
>> "9/24/2009".to_date
=> Thu, 24 Sep 2009
Works great unless your date is in some weird format.