From: "lrlebron@..." <lrlebron@...>
Date: 2007-01-23T07:05:11+09:00
Subject: Re: find monday of first week of the month

You may want to try the chronic library

require 'chronic'
date_start = Chronic.parse("Monday of first week of February")


Daniel Liebig wrote:
> Hi,
>
> im pretty new to Ruby and i tried to find out how to calculate the date
> for the first monday of the first week of the month (i.e. this would be
> 2007-01-29 for Feb. 2007)
> My approach is to get the weekday of the first day of the month and
> calculate back from there. By getting the weekday i can tell how far to
> calculate back (if necessary at all). If i'm calcualating back from
> janurary, i also have to switch back the year.
>
> So this is what i came out with:
>
>      year = 2007
>      month = 2
>
>      # get the weekday of the first day of the month
>      first_wd = Date.new(year, month, 1).wday
>
>      # if weekday is sunday
>      if first_wd == 0
>        date_modifier = - 6
>
>      #if weekday is monday
>      elsif first_wd == 1
>        date_modifier = 1
>
>      # any other day
>      else
>        date_modifier = - ( first_wd - 1 )
>      end
>
>      #if i have to count back, swith month (and year) back
>      if date_modifier < 0
>        if month > 1
>          month -= 1
>        else
>          month = 12
>          year -= 1
>        end
>      end
>
>      # get date with calculated modifier
>      date_start = Date.new(year, month, date_modifier )
>
> Ok, this works, but it seems pretty complicated to me. Is there a
> smarter (and more readable) way to do this? As far as i know Ruby right
> now, it's pretty unusual if an "easy" problem like this needs more than
> three lines of code ;).
> 
> Thx for any help
> Regards
> Daniel