From: Paul Battley <pbattley@...>
Date: 2006-09-01T22:47:48+09:00
Subject: Re: Convert String to date

On 01/09/06, aidy <aidy.rutter@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for getting back.
>
> I have extrapolated your example (see below)
>
> require 'date'
> start_date = Date.strptime(start_date, '%d/%m/%Y')
> end_day = (start_date  + 1).mday
> end_month = (start_date).mon
> end_year = (start_date).year
> end_date = Date.new(end_year, end_month, end_day)
> p "the end_date is: #{end_date}"

You missed a simple point: adding one to a date gives you the next day:

  require 'date'
  start_date = '27/07/06'
  start_date = Date.strptime(start_date, '%d/%m/%y')
  end_date = start_date + 1
  puts "The end date is #{ end_date }."

outputs:

  The end date is 2006-07-28.

> However, I am having a couple of difficulties
>
> 1) Now for some reason the year '2006' is putting to the console
>
> "the end_date is: 0006-07-28"

That's because you used %Y, not %y, in strptime. If you are parsing a
two-digit year, you need to use %y to infer the century automatically.
%Y reads it verbatim: 06 is 0006, not 2006.

> 2) And if I add this line of code
>
> end_date = Date.strptime(end_date, '%d/%m/%Y')
>
> I receive the error the #strptime is a private method!

Is the first parameter that you pass to strptime a String or a Date?
If it's the Date calculated in the earlier example, that will fail
with an error 'private method `sub!' called for #<Date:...>'. And if
it's already a Date, there's no need to use strptime!

Paul.