From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
Date: 2003-08-20T23:28:51+09:00
Subject: Re: ParseDate and Time

On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 02:20:09PM +0000, Jason Williams wrote:
> Why don't ParseDate and Time play nicely together? 

o/~ ParseDate, Date, Rosemary and Time . . . o/~

Ahem.

> I'd have thought ParseDate could output a Time object, or at least
> Time could accept the array that ParseDate emits. 

It can.

	irb(main):009:0> puts Time.gm(*parsedate("1993-01-01T00:00:00Z"))
	Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 UTC 1993
	=> nil

Or you can assume local time, instead:

irb(main):010:0> puts Time.local(*parsedate("Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 02:20:09PM"))
Wed Aug 20 14:20:09 EDT 2003
=> nil

The Ruby class design philosophy is not to use multiple constructors, but
rather to have class methods with names that tell you what they're doing.
Always look at the class methods if you need some non-default way to make
an instance - there may be one there.

(Oh, Time.local has an alias called Time.mktime, but I prefer to explicitly
note the local timezone assumption).

-Mark