With ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone I'm able to do the following and get back a TimeWithZone object in the correct timezone.
Time.current.in_time_zone('Alaska')
:> Thu, 19 Oct 2017 08:45:08 AKDT -08:00
Is there an equivalent method to in_time_zone where I can pass it the UTC Offset in seconds and get back a TimeWithZone object with the specified offset?
offset = -25200 # -25200 seconds == -08:00
Time.current.in_utc_offset(offset)
:> Thu, 19 Oct 2017 08:45:08 -08:00
Thanks in advance!
Using Rails 5.1.2 & Ruby 2.4.1
Yes it is in vanilla Ruby: #getlocal(sec). It is not going to give you an ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone but it will give you the Time which you can format or do whatever you want with it, including using ActiveSupport extensions.
2.4.1 :016 > Time.now.getlocal(3600)
=> 2017-10-19 22:56:45 +0100
2.4.1 :017 > Time.now.getlocal(-3600)
=> 2017-10-19 20:56:48 -0100
PS: -25200 is 7 hours in seconds :) -8:00 would be 28800
This could introduce subtle "bugs" (perceived inconsistencies), like the following:
>> Time.zone.parse('Tue, 01 Aug 2017 00:00:00 CEST +02:00') < Date.new(2017,8,1)
=> true
It seems as if Rails converts the Date to a DateTime or TimeWithZone object with '00:00:00 UTC', hence the result. Like this:
>> Date.new(2017,8,1).to_datetime
=> Tue, 01 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000
That would explain it. But I would like to know how Rails actually does this, and what type of object it converts it to in the process, to be sure. I didn't find it in the API docs, or the source, but maybe someone can give a step by step explanation.
The source I looked through was: compare_with_coercion
PS: To me it would seem saner that in this type of comparison that Rails would actually convert the TimeWithZone object to a Date object instead, thus resulting in only the date portions to be compared, so that:
>> Time.zone.parse('Tue, 01 Aug 2017 00:00:00 CEST +02:00') == Date.new(2017,8,1)
=> true
Ref:
DateTime API doc
Date API doc
The user inputs a date range let's say from yesterday with any timezone.
from_datetime = "10/01/2012 00:00 +0545"
I get purchased time for the book like below:
purchased_at = Book.where("created_at > #{from_date}").purchased_at
=> Fri, 08 Jun 2012 09:44:26 UTC +00:00
The problem is this gives me UTC time but I want to show the purchased_at time in the requested time_zone which can vary.
I can't use in_time_zone as the input from_date only has time offset, can I ?
purchased_at.in_time_zone("Kathmandu")
=> Fri, 08 Jun 2012 15:29:26 NPT +05:45
Is there any way around?
Give an offset, you can get a timezone name from ActiveSupport::TimeZone:
> ActiveSupport::TimeZone[5.hours + 45.minutes]
=> (GMT+05:45) Kathmandu
Then you can hand that to in_time_zone:
> Time.now.in_time_zone(ActiveSupport::TimeZone[5.hours + 45.minutes])
=> Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:33:12 NPT +05:45
You can pull the offset out of the from_datetime with a bit of simple wrangling if you know the incoming format.
There are issues with this approach:
The mapping from offset to name isn't unique.
DST could be a problem if ActiveSupport::TimeZone[] gives you the wrong name.
Depending on your needs, you could just apply the offset manually and ignore the timezone when formatting the timestamp:
> (Time.now.utc + 5.hours + 45.minutes).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S +0545')
=> "2012-10-18 12:40:12 +0545"
I need to store some time periods in a yaml file, like this:
test:
testing: <%= 1.month %>
I grab the data in an initializer like this:
Class::TIMES = YAML.load(ERB.new(File.new(Rails.root.join('config', 'times.yml')).read).result)
So far so good. But the times I get from this are always off by a day; testing shows this. For example:
<Tue, 06 Mar 2012> expected but was <Wed, 07 Mar 2012>.
The test line:
assert_equal 1.month.from_now.to_date, #object.finished_at.to_date
Elsewhere, #object's finished_at is set like this:
# duration is from the YAML file
self.finished_at = duration.from_now
It always seems to be off by a day, no matter what time period I put in the YAML file. Why does this happen?
EDIT: This seems to be an issue with Fixnums and from_now:
> 1.month.from_now
=> Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:05:00 UTC +00:00
> 1.month.to_i.from_now
=> Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:05:05 UTC +00:00
When you convert 1.month to an integer it arbitrary sets the duration getting passed into from_now to 2592000 seconds i.e 30 days regardless of what month it is.
I ran into this issue once before. Check out the documentation for the Data and Time Helper Methods .
While these methods provide precise calculation when used as in the
examples above(".. 1.month.from_now .."), care should be taken to note
that this is not true if the result of months’,years’, etc is
converted before use
I have a variable foo that contains a time, lets say 4pm today, but the zone offset is wrong, i.e. it is in the wrong time zone. How do I change the time zone?
When I print it I get
Fri Jun 26 07:00:00 UTC 2009
So there is no offset, and I would like to set the offset to -4 or Eastern Standard Time.
I would expect to be able to just set the offset as a property of the Time object, but that doesn't seem to be available?
You don't explicitly say how you get the actual variable but since you mention the Time class so I'll assume you got the time using that and I'll refer to that in my answer
The timezone is actually part of the Time class (in your case the timezone is shown as UTC). Time.now will return the offset from UTC as part of the Time.now response.
>> local = Time.now
=> 2012-08-13 08:36:50 +0000
>> local.hour
=> 8
>> local.min
=> 36
>>
... in this case I happen to be in the same timezone as GMT
Converting between timezones
The easiest way that I've found is to change the offset using '+/-HH:MM' format to the getlocal method. Let's pretend I want to convert between the time in Dublin and the time in New York
?> dublin = Time.now
=> 2012-08-13 08:36:50 +0000
>> new_york = dublin + Time.zone_offset('EST')
=> 2012-08-13 08:36:50 +0000
>> dublin.hour
=> 8
>> new_york.hour
=> 3
Assuming that 'EST' is the name of the Timezone for New York, as Dan points out sometimes 'EDT' is the correct TZ.
This takes advantage of the fact that Time#asctime doesn't include the zone.
Given a time:
>> time = Time.now
=> 2013-03-13 13:01:48 -0500
Force it to another zone (this returns an ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone):
>> ActiveSupport::TimeZone['US/Pacific'].parse(time.asctime)
=> Wed, 13 Mar 2013 13:01:48 PDT -07:00
Note that the original zone is ignored completely. If I convert the original time to utc, the result will be different:
>> ActiveSupport::TimeZone['US/Pacific'].parse(time.getutc.asctime)
=> Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:01:48 PDT -07:00
You can use to_time or to_datetime on the result to get a corresponding Time or DateTime.
This question uses an interesting approach with DateTime#change to set the tz offset. (Remember that ActiveSupport makes it easy to convert between Time and DateTime.) The downside is that there's no DST detection; you have to do that manually by using TZInfo's current_period.
If given:
2011-10-25 07:21:35 -700
you want:
2011-10-25 07:21:35 UTC
then do:
Time.parse(Time.now.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S UTC')).to_s
...
>> Time.at(Time.now.utc + Time.zone_offset('PST'))
=> Mon Jun 07 22:46:22 UTC 2010
>> Time.at(Time.now.utc + Time.zone_offset('PDT'))
=> Mon Jun 07 23:46:26 UTC 2010
>> Time.at(Time.now.utc + Time.zone_offset('CST'))
=> Tue Jun 08 00:46:32 UTC 2010
One note: make sure that the current time object is set to UTC time first, otherwise Ruby will try and convert the Time object to your local timezone, thus throwing the calculation. You can always get the adjusted time by applying ".utc" to the end of the above statements in that case.
For those that came across this while looking for a non-rails solution (as I did), TZInfo solved it for me...
require 'tzinfo'
def adjust_time time, time_zone="America/Los_Angeles"
return TZInfo::Timezone.get(time_zone).utc_to_local(time.utc)
end
puts adjust_time(Time.now)
#=> PST or PDT
puts adjust_time(Time.now, "America/New_York")
#=> EST or EDT
This also handles DST, which is what I needed that wasn't handled above.
See: http://tzinfo.rubyforge.org/
in you environment.rb search for the following line.
# Set Time.zone default to the specified zone and make Active Record auto-convert to this zone.
# Run "rake -D time" for a list of tasks for finding time zone names.
config.time_zone = 'UTC'
Keep in mind ActiveRecord and Rails always handle Time as UTC internally.
I'm using Rails 2.0 before they added the code that makes weppos solution work. Here's what I did
# Silly hack, because sometimes the input_date is in the wrong timezone
temp = input_date.to_time.to_a
temp[8] = true
temp[9] = "Eastern Daylight Time"
input_date = Time.local(*temp)
I break the time down into a 10 element array, change the timezone and then convert the array back into a time.
Here is what worked for me...
def convert_zones(to_zone)
to_zone_time = to_zone.localtime
end
# have your time set as time
time = convert_zones(time)
time.strftime("%b #{day}, %Y (%a) #{hour}:%M %p %Z")
This is what I did, as I am not using Rails and don't want to use any non-core gems.
t = Time.now # my local time - which is GMT
zone_offset = 3600 # offset for CET - which is my target time zone
zone_offset += 3600 if t.dst? # an extra hour offset in summer
time_cet = Time.mktime(t.sec, t.min, t.hour, t.mday, t.mon, t.year, nil, nil, t.dst?, zone_offset)
Option 1
Use 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
Option 2
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
It's probably a good idea to store the time as UTC and then show it in a specific time zone when it is displayed. Here's an easy way to do that (works in Rails 4, unsure about earlier versions).
t = Time.now.utc
=> 2016-04-19 20:18:33 UTC
t.in_time_zone("EST")
=> Tue, 19 Apr 2016 15:18:33 EST -05:00
But if you really want to store it in a specific timezone, you can just set the initial Time object to itself.in_time_zone like this:
t = t.in_time_zone("EST")
When Parsing a Time
I'd be interested to hear how you're setting the variable foo to begin with.
If you're parsing a time string that doesn't have a time zone (what I was doing during a data import) then you can use String#in_time_zone to force the time zone during the parsing:
"Fri Jun 26 2019 07:00:00".in_time_zone( "Eastern Time (US & Canada)" )
# => Wed, 26 Jun 2019 07:00:00 EDT -04:00
Works like a charm and is super clean.
You can do:
DateTime.parse('Fri Jun 26 07:00:00 UTC 2009').change(offset: '-0400')
Which returns:
Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:00:00 -0400