From: Pete Yandell <pete@...>
Date: 2006-05-30T09:13:36+09:00
Subject: Re: Overriding Time.now

Following up a slightly old thread here, but I've taken a hybrid  
approach to a couple already suggested and it seems to work well:

   class Time
     @@now = nil

     def self.now=(time)
       @@now = time
     end

     def self.forced_now
       @@now || unforced_now
     end

     class << self
       alias_method :unforced_now, :now
       alias_method :now, :forced_now
     end
   end

Then, in my test I can simply do Time.now = whatever. As long as I  
put a Time.now = nil in my teardown, it doesn't seem to mess up the  
test timings. (Note that I'm doing this in Rails, so your mileage may  
vary.) It's important that the Time.now = nil goes in the teardown,  
rather than in the test itself, to ensure that it runs even if a test  
fails.

Cheers,

Pete Yandell
http://9cays.com/