Rails 3, View only date format?

Question

I needed to show date in localized format. i.e. 12/31/2013

Therefore, I set the default date format to that format in config/initializers/datetime_formats.rb

Date::DATE_FORMATS[:default]="%m/%d/%Y"
Time::DATE_FORMATS[:default]="%m/%d/%Y %H:%M"

However, my tests failed in unit tests because some searches are based on date format. For example

>> User.find_by_created_at("#{DateTime.now}")
User Load (2.7ms)  SELECT `users`.* FROM `users` 
WHERE `users`.`created_at` = '02/04/2013 14:43' LIMIT 1

Of course, I can change all models to use all date or datetime search to use Date class or DateTime class instead of string. But, I got curious if we can apply view-only date format or view-only time format or not.

Is there a way to apply view-only date(or time) format?

----- edit -----

I already have custom method l_or_none for views with exception handling.

def l_or_none(object)
  l(object) rescue ''
end

I just don't want to repeat this method all over the views, and looking for a way, "if Date#to_s is called in view, format this way", without using my own method.

Why don't we have a concept like this?

"If this object is used under view, override method in this way"

You can add some method in your view to show your localized format without touching your initializers. Is that what you need? — Sri

Vikko Vikko · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-13T14:25:13

You could use the localization of rails:

config/locales/en-US.yml

date:
  formats:
    default: "%m/%d/%Y"
    short: "%m/%d"
datetime:
  formats:
    default: "%m/%d/%Y %H:%M"
    short: "%H:%M"
    notime: "%m/%d/%Y"

And in the view:

<%= l(@entry.created_at) %>
<%= l(@entry.created_at, :format => :short) %>
<%= l(@entry.created_at, :format => :notime) %>

result:

02/13/2013 15:24
15:24
02/13/2013

http://guides.rubyonrails.org/i18n.html

Rails 3, View only date format?

2 Answers