From: Morton Goldberg <m_goldberg@...>
Date: 2006-12-14T13:44:17+09:00
Subject: Re: DateTime.strptime()

On Dec 13, 2006, at 7:03 PM, Matt G. wrote:

> Sorry for posting a beginner question here, but it seems like date/ 
> format.rb
> is missing documentation on ruby-doc.org.
>
> So, the question is, why does this code not work?  (I'm using  
> ruby-1.8.4)
>
> irb(main):001:0> require 'date'
> => true
> irb(main):002:0> myd = DateTime.strptime("1166049481", '%s')
> ArgumentError: 3 elements of civil date are necessary
>        from lib/ruby/1.8/date.rb:1214:in `new_with_hash'
>        from lib/ruby/1.8/date.rb:1238:in `strptime'
>        from (irb):2
>
> I was able to make this work: Date::strptime("1/1/1970", '%d/%m/% 
> Y') so I'm
> pretty sure I don't have a syntax error.

DateTime.strptime simply can't handle "1166049481" as an argument. It  
wants something that looks like a date/time stamp that a human might  
be able to read. Unfortunately, as you point out, exactly what it  
wants isn't documented. You're expected to read date/format.rb, which  
IMO isn't easy decipher.

BTW, even if your first argument were acceptable, I think your second  
would be ignored -- at least in 1.8.2, which is what I'm running, %s  
has no effect.

> Thanks for any help.

Not much help, I'm afraid, but you did ask for "any help" :)

Regards, Morton