From: Antonio Cangiano <acangianohatesspam@...>
Date: 2006-02-02T06:37:42+09:00
Subject: Re: relative dates

charlie bowman wrote:
> today = Time.now
> 
> how can I do this? "last_week = 7.days.ago"
> 
> I know the above won't work, but how can I get the date of last week?
> 

Hi Charlie,
you could define something like this:

class Integer
   def weeks
     self * 7.days
   end

   def days
     self * 24.hours
   end

   def hours
     self * 60.minutes
   end

   def minutes
     self * 60
   end

   def ago(time = Time.now)
     time - self
   end
end

puts 7.days.ago  #=> Mon Jan 23 01:50:09 GMT 2006
puts 1.weeks.ago #=> Mon Jan 23 01:50:09 GMT 2006

Of course you can alias days with day, weeks with week, add months, 
years and so on. You can also add extra methods like Rails does (until, 
since, from_now, etc...)

Cheers,
Antonio
-- 
Antonio Cangiano
My Ruby blog: http://www.antoniocangiano.com