From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2002-10-17T23:53:19+09:00
Subject: Re: Date handling with DBI

From: "Philipp Meier" <meier@meisterbohne.de>


> For now, I am resorting to storing my date information as strings in the
> database.  Does anyone know about the logistics of database-independent date
> handling?

I use DBI with Mysql and prepared statements:

stm = dbh.prepare("intert into test values (?)")
stm.execute(Time.now)

-billy.

Hmmm.... I can't test right now, but I'll give it a try.  Just so this post is
not a totally information-free zone, let me pass on a curious result.

SQL> create table test_date (test DATE);
SQL> insert into test_date values ('01-OCT-2002');

% ruby <<EOF
require "dbi"
DBI.connect(...) do |dbi|
  date = dbi.select_one("select * from test_date").to_h["TEST"]
  puts date
  puts date.class
end
EOF

01-OCT-02
String

===

So, DATE information in the database in returned through either DBI or the
Oracle driver as a String.  I'll try the method you posted shortly, but I'm not
confident.  (It's probably the Oracle driver.)

Thanks,
Gavin