From: "Michael W. Ryder" <_mwryder@...>
Date: 2009-10-07T05:00:07+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby for the wrong reason

7stud -- wrote:
> James Edward Gray II wrote:
>> On Oct 6, 2009, at 1:16 AM, 7stud -- wrote:
>>
>>> No.  I think in ruby the code would be almost exactly the same--except
>>> it's significantly harder to figure out in ruby because there is no
>>> documentation about the format specifiers you can use with strftime()
>>> and strptime().  Amazing, huh?
>> Amazingly wrong, yeah:
>>
> 
> Not at all:
> 
> 1) $ri Date::strptime
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------- Date::strptime
>      Date::strptime(str='-4712-01-01', fmt='%F', sg=ITALY)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>      Create a new Date object by parsing from a String according to a
>      specified format.
> 
>      +str+ is a String holding a date representation. +fmt+ is the
>      format that the date is in. See date/format.rb for details on
>      supported formats.
> 
>      The default +str+ is '-4712-01-01', and the default +fmt+ is '%F',
>      which means Year-Month-Day_of_Month. This gives Julian Day Number
>      day 0.
> 
>      +sg+ specifies the Day of Calendar Reform.
> 
>      An ArgumentError will be raised if +str+ cannot be parsed.
> -----------------------------
> 
> Good luck finding and then digging through the **source code** of 
> format.rb to locate anything on the format specifiers.
> 
> 
> 2) $ri Date#strftime
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------- Date#strftime
>      strftime(fmt='%F')
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>      (no description...)
> 
> 
> 
> And from the official Standard Library Documentation for 'date':
> 
> 1)
> strptime(str='-4712-01-01', fmt='%F', sg=ITALY)
> ----------------------------------------
> 
> Create a new Date object by parsing from a String according to a 
> specified format.
> 
> str is a String holding a date representation. fmt is the format that 
> the date is in. See date/format.rb for details on supported formats.
> 
> The default str is ’-4712-01-01’, and the default fmt is ’%F’, which 
> means Year-Month-Day_of_Month. This gives Julian Day Number day 0.
> 
> sg specifies the Day of Calendar Reform.
> 
> An ArgumentError will be raised if str cannot be parsed.
> =================
> 
> 
> 2)
> strftime(fmt='%F')
> --------------
> [Source]
> 
> That last one is a real doozy--and quite typical of ruby Standard 
> Library documentation.
> 

Or you could just use the Standard C Library documentation.  I don't 
know if anyone wants to try and include the entire document into the 
documentation for Ruby, or if its even legal to do so.