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class Date

Constants

DATE_FORMATS

{
short: "%d %b",
long: "%B %d, %Y",
db: "%Y-%m-%d",
inspect: "%Y-%m-%d",
number: "%Y%m%d",
long_ordinal: lambda { |date|
day_format = ActiveSupport::Inflector.ordinalize(date.day)
date.strftime("%B #{day_format}, %Y") # => "April 25th, 2007"
},
rfc822: "%d %b %Y",
iso8601: lambda { |date| date.iso8601 }
}

Public instance methods

default_inspect()

Alias for: inspect.

inspect()

Also aliased as: default_inspect.

Alias for: readable_inspect.

readable_inspect()

Also aliased as: inspect.

Overrides the default inspect method with a human readable one, e.g., “Mon, 21 Feb 2005”

Source code GitHub 
# File activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/date/conversions.rb, line 63
def readable_inspect
  strftime("%a, %d %b %Y")
end

to_formatted_s(format = :default)

Alias for: to_fs.

to_fs(format = :default)

Also aliased as: to_formatted_s.

Convert to a formatted string. See DATE_FORMATS for predefined formats.

This method is aliased to to_formatted_s.

date = Date.new(2007, 11, 10)       # => Sat, 10 Nov 2007

date.to_fs(:db)                     # => "2007-11-10"
date.to_formatted_s(:db)            # => "2007-11-10"

date.to_fs(:short)         # => "10 Nov"
date.to_fs(:number)        # => "20071110"
date.to_fs(:long)          # => "November 10, 2007"
date.to_fs(:long_ordinal)  # => "November 10th, 2007"
date.to_fs(:rfc822)        # => "10 Nov 2007"
date.to_fs(:iso8601)       # => "2007-11-10"

Adding your own date formats to to_fs

You can add your own formats to the Date::DATE_FORMATS hash. Use the format name as the hash key and either a strftime string or Proc instance that takes a date argument as the value.

# config/initializers/date_formats.rb
Date::DATE_FORMATS[:month_and_year] = '%B %Y'
Date::DATE_FORMATS[:short_ordinal] = ->(date) { date.strftime("%B #{date.day.ordinalize}") }
Source code GitHub 
# File activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/date/conversions.rb, line 47
def to_fs(format = :default)
  if formatter = DATE_FORMATS[format]
    if formatter.respond_to?(:call)
      formatter.call(self).to_s
    else
      strftime(formatter)
    end
  else
    to_s
  end
end

to_time(form = :local)

Converts a Date instance to a Time, where the time is set to the beginning of the day. The timezone can be either :local or :utc (default :local).

date = Date.new(2007, 11, 10)  # => Sat, 10 Nov 2007

date.to_time                   # => 2007-11-10 00:00:00 0800
date.to_time(:local)           # => 2007-11-10 00:00:00 0800

date.to_time(:utc)             # => 2007-11-10 00:00:00 UTC

NOTE: The :local timezone is Ruby’s process timezone, i.e. ENV['TZ']. If the application’s timezone is needed, then use in_time_zone instead.

Source code GitHub 
# File activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/date/conversions.rb, line 83
def to_time(form = :local)
  raise ArgumentError, "Expected :local or :utc, got #{form.inspect}." unless [:local, :utc].include?(form)
  ::Time.public_send(form, year, month, day)
end

xmlschema()

Returns a string which represents the time in used time zone as DateTime defined by XML Schema:

date = Date.new(2015, 05, 23)  # => Sat, 23 May 2015
date.xmlschema                 # => "2015-05-23T00:00:00+04:00"
Source code GitHub 
# File activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/date/conversions.rb, line 95
def xmlschema
  in_time_zone.xmlschema
end

Definition files