Hi I must be slipping, but say I have a string that looks like: 3/11/2012 2:50:00 AM If I use the UTC timezone and ask it to parse this time, what would you expect the result to be? Personally, I''d say 3/11/2012 2:50:00 AM UTC Given this is the DST switchover date (for some places) this is an edge case. It''s the "spring forward" rule so 2:50 AM is 3:50... But not in UTC... that''s one of the nice things about UTC. So, I was surprised when: ActiveSupport::TimeZone["UTC"].parse("3/11/2012 2:50:00 AM") => Sun, 11 Mar 2012 03:50:00 UTC +00:00 Ok, maybe the AM trips it up into thinking I''m not really UTC because I''m not using a 24 clock? Nope: ActiveSupport::TimeZone["UTC"].parse("3/11/2012 2:50:00") => Sun, 11 Mar 2012 03:50:00 UTC +00:00 But, if I append " UTC" to the string it works as I expect: ActiveSupport::TimeZone["UTC"].parse("3/11/2012 2:50:00 UTC") => Sun, 11 Mar 2012 02:50:00 UTC +00:00 ActiveSupport::TimeZone["UTC"].parse("3/11/2012 2:50:00 AM UTC") => Sun, 11 Mar 2012 02:50:00 UTC +00:00 I looked at the documentation and parse for AR:TZ takes two parameters, the second being a "now" that: If upper components are missing from the string, they are supplied from #now<http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/TimeZone.html#method-i-now> (http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/TimeZone.html#method-i-parse) So, I tried passing in a UTC current time, but it also went back to 3:50: ActiveSupport::TimeZone["UTC"].parse("3/11/2012 2:50:00", ActiveSupport::TimeZone["UTC"].now) => Sun, 11 Mar 2012 03:50:00 UTC +00:00 For reference, I''m using: tzinfo 0.3.33 activesupport 3.2.6 Am I being stupid here? A cursory googling led to https://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/2470-cannot-make-zoneparse-create-given-time-dst The wontfix is indicative, but maybe this should at least be a gotcha in the documentation? Again, apologies if I''m being dense and have missed something obvious. Thanks, Andrew -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rubyonrails-talk/-/qP-2xEP7iWwJ. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFF+G/Ez6ZCGd0@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk+unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFF+G/Ez6ZCGd0@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.