# Date in controller? Killing me!

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/date-in-controller-killing-me/85998>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [February 18, 2007, 8:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/date-in-controller-killing-me/85998 "2007-02-18T20:34:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![miked](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@miked](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/miked)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 8:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/date-in-controller-killing-me/85998/1 "2007-02-18T20:34:44Z")

</div>

Hi:

I’ve tackled this problem three seperate times with a couple of posts  
and still can’t get it to work.

All I really want to do is grab a value in not-exactly date format and  
put it in a mysql database datetime column with a time of zero. The  
frustrating thing is that I’ve tried it in the console and it’s totally  
working. But when I go back to the DB, it’s just not there:

```
@task = Task.new(params[:task])

```

@task.duedate = params[:task][:duedate]  
@task.save!

Pretty simple, right? It’s not there. I also put it in a session  
variable just to make sure I’m actually getting the value from paras -  
no problem, it’s there:

session[:duedate] = params[:task][:duedate]

But still not in the DB. I’ve tried it a bunch of different ways,  
including trying a session variable

@date = params[:task][:duedate]  
@task.duedate = @date

That didn’t work. The really bad part - when I just try a string:

@task.duedate = “04/03/2007”

Again, nothing, even though in the console, I was able to get it to  
work.

What the heck am I doing wrong? Any help you can give would be greatly  
appreciated! As you can see, I’m going nuts!

Thanks in advance!

Mike

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![miked](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@miked](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/miked)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 9:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/date-in-controller-killing-me/85998/2 "2007-02-18T21:43:11Z")

</div>

Try @task.duedate = “2007-04-03”

On Feb 18, 2:34 pm, Mike D. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![miked](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@miked](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/miked)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 12:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/date-in-controller-killing-me/85998/3 "2007-02-19T00:40:03Z")

</div>

Why are you setting the duedate separately? From your code, the :duedate  
field is in the :task hash, so if there’s a database column called  
duedate on the table task, it should work automatically.

I would focus on the format of the date coming in. Are you letting the  
user type in any date they’d like? The the other respondent, MySQL  
expects dates in YYYY-MM-DD format.

Mike D. wrote:

> Hi:
> 
> I’ve tackled this problem three seperate times with a couple of posts  
> and still can’t get it to work.
> 
> All I really want to do is grab a value in not-exactly date format and  
> put it in a mysql database datetime column with a time of zero. The  
> frustrating thing is that I’ve tried it in the console and it’s totally  
> working. But when I go back to the DB, it’s just not there:
> 
> ```
> @task = Task.new(params[:task])
> 
> ```
> 
> @task.duedate = params[:task][:duedate]  
> @task.save!
> 
> Pretty simple, right? It’s not there. I also put it in a session  
> variable just to make sure I’m actually getting the value from paras -  
> no problem, it’s there:
> 
> session[:duedate] = params[:task][:duedate]
> 
> But still not in the DB. I’ve tried it a bunch of different ways,  
> including trying a session variable
> 
> @date = params[:task][:duedate]  
> @task.duedate = @date
> 
> That didn’t work. The really bad part - when I just try a string:
> 
> @task.duedate = “04/03/2007”
> 
> Again, nothing, even though in the console, I was able to get it to  
> work.
> 
> What the heck am I doing wrong? Any help you can give would be greatly  
> appreciated! As you can see, I’m going nuts!
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> 
> Mike