Rails - Apr 2006 - checking date

Radrails created a field for date 


      <%= product.date_available.strftime("%y-%m-%d") %>
What does this mean?
Should the definition be date or datetime? I tried both and no results
Jim
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060420/ed0cbb14/attachment.html

SIX-S wrote:
> Radrails created a field for date
>       <%= product.date_available.strftime("%y-%m-%d") %>
> What does this mean?
That will convert the date "date_available" into a string with the 
format
yy-mm-dd as described here:
http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/html/ref_c_time.html#Time.strftime
> Should the definition be date or datetime? I tried both and no results
Not quite sure what you''re asking here.

Mark

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Thanks for answering my question.
I dont know where the name " "strftime" originates
I described the date_available field in the table products(from tutorial 
"depot") as type datetime. I changed the table type of date_available
as
"date" when I had the error when running the program "list
.rhtml" in my
browser Firefox.
JIm
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Paxton" <mark@paxton.plus.com>
To: <rails@lists.rubyonrails.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 4:55 PM
Subject: [Rails] Re: checking date

> SIX-S wrote:
>> Radrails created a field for date
>>       <%= product.date_available.strftime("%y-%m-%d")
%>
>> What does this mean?
> That will convert the date "date_available" into a string with
the
> format
> yy-mm-dd as described here:
>
http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/html/ref_c_time.html#Time.strftime
>
>> Should the definition be date or datetime? I tried both and no results
>
> Not quite sure what you''re asking here.
>
> Mark
>
> -- 
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>

SIX-S wrote:
> Thanks for answering my question.
> I dont know where the name " "strftime" originates
> I described the date_available field in the table products(from tutorial
> "depot") as type datetime. I changed the table type of
date_available as
> "date" when I had the error when running the program "list
.rhtml" in my
> browser Firefox.
> JIm
What error do you have that you are trying to correct?

datetime is the type stored in the database only, in your product object 
the attribute date_available will be of class Time... strftime is a 
method of Time.

You may get an error when date_available is not set in a record you wish 
to display/list, it will complain that no such method nil.strftime 
exists.  Try the line:
 <%= product.date_available.strftime("%y-%m-%d") unless 
product.date_available.nil? %>

Or logic to that effect, alternatives can be found by searching the list 
archive.

Cheers,
Mark

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

I have a problem like the one described. My database has a a table paintings
with a DATETIME field called creation_date. In list.rhtml I code:

   painting.creation_date.strftime("%y-%m-%d")

Rails complains:
You have a nil object when you didn''t expect it!
The error occured while evaluating nil.strftime

I''m sure the expression painting.creation_date results in a variable of
class Time, as the expression painting.creation_date.class returns Time.

So why does Rails think that painting.creation_date is a nil object?

He, I found out why Rails complains about nil.strftime:
I have rows in my database with no value for the field creation_date.
So, as a matter of fact, Rails doesn''t complain about errors in the
code. While running the code Rails is checking (or reading) the database and
finds nil values for the creation_date fields of some rows. That''s what
is reported as nil.strftime

Anonymous wrote:
> He, I found out why Rails complains about nil.strftime:
> I have rows in my database with no value for the field creation_date.
> So, as a matter of fact, Rails doesn''t complain about errors in
the
> code. While running the code Rails is checking (or reading) the database 
> and finds nil values for the creation_date fields of some rows.
That''s
> what is reported as nil.strftime
For the record, Rails has a nifty little feature where if you create a 
table with a field named "created_on" it will automatically populate
new
rows with the current date.

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Thanks for the reply Adam. I knew about the feature and it is indeed useful. My
creation_date field though, wasn''t about the creation of the row but
about the creation of the product itself. But I am certainly going to use
created_on.