Converting a date into a string

Ruby:
Converting a date into a string

How to:

Ruby makes it super easy to play around with dates and strings. Here’s how you do it:

require 'date'

# Let's create a date object
my_date = Date.new(2023, 4, 14)

# Default conversion to string
date_string = my_date.to_s
puts date_string  # Output: "2023-04-14"

# Custom formats using strftime (string format time)
pretty_date = my_date.strftime('%B %d, %Y')
puts pretty_date  # Output: "April 14, 2023"

# Another example, just for kicks
fun_date_format = my_date.strftime('%d-%m-%Y')
puts fun_date_format  # Output: "14-04-2023"

Deep Dive

Way back when, people wrote the date by hand. In the programming world, Ruby’s Date class brought us the power to handle dates without breaking a sweat. You’ve got methods like to_s and strftime to turn your Date objects into strings.

The to_s method gives you a quick ISO 8601 representation (YYYY-MM-DD), which is great for a no-frills conversion. But when you need your date to put on a fancy dress, strftime lets you choose the exact pattern your string will follow. Symbols in strftime like %Y for four-digit year, %m for two-digit month, and %d for two-digit day are your building blocks to format dates.

While Ruby’s Date and Time classes are solid, gems like Timecop for time travel (not real time travel, sorry) during tests, or Chronic for parsing natural language dates, can add some oomph when you need it.

The guts of it? Ruby uses system libraries—like the timekeeping parts of C libraries—under the hood. It means it’s high-speed and reliable, handling quirks like leap years and daylight savings like a champ.

Ruby:Converting a date into a string

How to:

Deep Dive

See Also

Ruby:
Converting a date into a string