How To Format Date In Ruby

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Formatting dates is a common task when working with applications that need to display dates or store them in a specific format. In this blog post, we will explore various ways to format dates in Ruby using the built-in Date and Time classes and methods.

Using strftime

The most flexible way to format a date in Ruby is to use the strftime method, available for both Date and Time objects. The strftime method allows you to specify a format string containing placeholders for various date and time components, which will be replaced by their corresponding values.

Here’s an example of using strftime to format a date: 

date = Date.new(2022, 12, 31)
formatted_date = date.strftime("%m/%d/%Y")
puts formatted_date
# Output: 12/31/2022

In the example above, we’ve used the strftime method with the format string "%m/%d/%Y" to display the date in a common US date format. You can customize the format string to include any combination of placeholders, which are specified using a percentage symbol followed by a letter.

Some common placeholders include:

  • %Y – year with century (e.g., 2022)
  • %y – year without century (e.g., 22)
  • %m – month (01-12)
  • %d – day of the month (01-31)
  • %H – hour (00-23)
  • %M – minute (00-59)
  • %S – second (00-60)

Using to_s and other built-in formatting methods

In addition to strftime, Ruby provides several built-in methods for commonly used date formats. For example, the to_s method, when called on a Date object, returns the date in the format "YYYY-MM-DD".

Here’s an example: 

date = Date.new(2022, 12, 31)
formatted_date = date.to_s
puts formatted_date
# Output: 2022-12-31

The Time class also provides methods like ctime and asctime to return a formatted string representing the date and time.

For instance: 

time = Time.new(2022, 12, 31, 12, 34, 56)
formatted_time = time.ctime
puts formatted_time
# Output: Fri Dec 31 12:34:56 2022

Conclusion

In this blog post, we’ve explored how to format dates in Ruby using the strftime method and other built-in methods such as to_s and ctime. By utilizing these methods, you can easily display dates and times in any desired format to meet the needs of your application.