Initializing a DateTime object the best way

ruby-talk
1

Wow - dates and times sure are all over the place in Ruby.

I want to initialize a DateTime object to have MDY of 12/30/1899 but
time components matching the current time.

I've tried:

DateTime.strptime("%Y-%m-%d %h:%M:%S", "1899-12-30
#{time.hour}:#{time.min}:#{time.sec}")

but strptime doesn't seem to like it.

Do I need to use a Time object - where's the correct string parsing
method for me to use?

Thanks,
Wes

···

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2

Wes Gamble wrote:

Wow - dates and times sure are all over the place in Ruby.

I want to initialize a DateTime object to have MDY of 12/30/1899 but
time components matching the current time.

I've tried:

DateTime.strptime("%Y-%m-%d %h:%M:%S", "1899-12-30
#{time.hour}:#{time.min}:#{time.sec}")

but strptime doesn't seem to like it.

Do I need to use a Time object - where's the correct string parsing
method for me to use?

Thanks,
Wes

Then I tried

Time.local(1899,"dec",30,10,0,0)

and 1899 is too far back.

Is there any way that I can create a time object with arbitrary year,
month, and day and current hour, minute, and second?

Thanks,
Wes

···

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3

DateTime is the class to use if you need to represent a wide range of dates. Time only works for a narrow range starting at Jan 1, 1970.

foo = DateTime.new(1899,12,30,8,30,33)
foo.asctime
=> "Sat Dec 30 08:30:33 1899"

Kirk Haines

···

On Tue, 18 Jul 2006, Wes Gamble wrote:

Wes Gamble wrote:

Wow - dates and times sure are all over the place in Ruby.

I want to initialize a DateTime object to have MDY of 12/30/1899 but
time components matching the current time.

I've tried:

DateTime.strptime("%Y-%m-%d %h:%M:%S", "1899-12-30
#{time.hour}:#{time.min}:#{time.sec}")

but strptime doesn't seem to like it.

Do I need to use a Time object - where's the correct string parsing
method for me to use?

4

Wes Gamble wrote:

Wes Gamble wrote:

Wow - dates and times sure are all over the place in Ruby.

I want to initialize a DateTime object to have MDY of 12/30/1899 but
time components matching the current time.

I've tried:

DateTime.strptime("%Y-%m-%d %h:%M:%S", "1899-12-30
#{time.hour}:#{time.min}:#{time.sec}")

but strptime doesn't seem to like it.

Do I need to use a Time object - where's the correct string parsing
method for me to use?

Thanks,
Wes

Then I tried

Time.local(1899,"dec",30,10,0,0)

and 1899 is too far back.

Is there any way that I can create a time object with arbitrary year,
month, and day and current hour, minute, and second?

Thanks,
Wes

This seems to get me pretty close.

DateTime.civil(1899, 12, 30, time.hour, time.min, time.sec,
DateTime.now.offset())

WG

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5

This is an interesting conversation. Can you tell me where this
DateTime class or the civil method comes from?

irb(main):001:0> DateTime.new(1899,12,30,8,30,33)
ArgumentError: wrong number of arguments (6 for 0)
            from (irb):1:in `initialize'
            from (irb):1

irb(main):002:0> DateTime.civil(1899,12,30,8,30,33)
NoMethodError: undefined method `civil' for DateTime:Class
               from (irb):2

...