From: Morton Goldberg <m_goldberg@...>
Date: 2007-02-03T03:22:33+09:00
Subject: Re: What's up with Time.local ?

On Feb 2, 2007, at 12:58 PM, Peter Bailey wrote:

> I need to check some file dates against the budgetary periods of our
> company, to determine where those files get placed. I'm playing  
> with the
> Time.local object. I've proven that I can denote which budget  
> period I'm
> in by using the .between? method. But, I get this weird "octal digit"
> error with some of my date entries.
>
> irb(main):001:0> t = Time.local(2007,09,09,00,00)
> SyntaxError: compile error
> (irb):1: Illegal octal digit
> t = Time.local(2007,09,09,00,00)
>                       ^
> (irb):1: Illegal octal digit
> t = Time.local(2007,09,09,00,00)
>                          ^
>
> I don't get the error when I specify the following date. It doesn't  
> seem
> to like the month of September. (-;
>
> irb(main):005:0> t = Time.local(2007,01,01,00,00)
> => Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0500 2007

In Ruby starting an integer with a leading zero designates that it is  
in octal notation. The non-negative octal integers start 00, 01, ...,  
07, 010, 011, .... There is no 09.

Bottom line: drop the leading zeros.

Regards, Morton