From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2009-09-01T22:33:34+09:00
Subject: Re: Date & time validation

2009/9/1 Ne Scripter <stuart.clarke@northumbria.ac.uk>:
> Hi all,
>
> I am looking for an easy way to validate date and time values in a
> script I have written.
>
> The script takes values from a large file containing various data sets,
> some dates and some times. I need to validate these dates and time
> values once I have loaded them into a variable and I was thinking of
> doing this through an a date check and time check object for example:
>
> date1 = field[2]
> date1 = dateCheck(date1) if date1 != ""
>
> date2 = field[23]
> date2 = dateCheck(date2) if date2 != ""
>
> time = field[24]
> time = timeCheck(time) if time != ""
>
> def dateCheck(dateData)
>  I need some code to check what ever is in this string and check for a
> valid    date of yyyy/mm/dd. The data being checked can be anything, so
> I need to know does it match the date format of yyyy/mm/dd, if so return
> true otherwise return an empty string
> end
>
>
> def timeCheck(timeData)
>  similar idea with the time I need to check the data is hh:mm:ss
> otherwise return an empty string.
> end
>
>
> Any ideas on how to do this? I was looking a the docs for date and I am
> struggling to make head way at this stage.
>
> Thanks in advance!

Just parse it into a Time instance:

15:32:29 ~$ irb19 -r time
Ruby version 1.9.1
irb(main):001:0> Time.parse '2009/01/02'
=> 2009-01-02 00:00:00 +0100
irb(main):002:0> Time.parse '2009/20/02'
ArgumentError: argument out of range
        from /opt/lib/ruby19/1.9.1/time.rb:202:in `local'
        from /opt/lib/ruby19/1.9.1/time.rb:202:in `make_time'
        from /opt/lib/ruby19/1.9.1/time.rb:261:in `parse'
        from (irb):2
        from /opt/bin/irb19:12:in `<main>'
irb(main):003:0>

Cheers

robert


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