# DateFields and ActiveRecords

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/datefields-and-activerecords/108269>\
**Category:** Rails I18n\
**Created:** [July 1, 2007, 1:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/datefields-and-activerecords/108269 "2007-07-01T13:36:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jonas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@jonas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jonas)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 1:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/datefields-and-activerecords/108269/1 "2007-07-01T13:36:24Z")

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Here is some typical code, right?

\<% for column in User.visible\_columns true %\>

 \<%= column.human\_name %\> \<%=h @user.send(column.name) %\> \<% end %\>

I want to customize how the date is formatted for timestamps. How do I  
do that? (I want the code above to automatically use my new format for  
timestamp/datetime columns)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jonas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@jonas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jonas)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 1:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/datefields-and-activerecords/108269/2 "2007-07-02T13:52:43Z")

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> \<% for column in User.visible\_columns true %\>
> 
> \<%= column.human\_name %\> \<%=h @user.send(column.name) %\> \<% end %\>
> 
> I want to customize how the date is formatted for timestamps. How do I  
> do that? (I want the code above to automatically use my new format for  
> timestamp/datetime columns)

Try modifing the DATE\_FORMATS[:db] constant with your own format…

you can see at:  
[http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/CoreExtensions/Time/Conversions.html](http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/CoreExtensions/Time/Conversions.html)