DateTime.strptime()

Ruby
1

Sorry for posting a beginner question here, but it seems like
date/format.rb
is missing documentation on ruby-doc.org.

So, the question is, why does this code not work? (I’m using
ruby-1.8.4)

irb(main):001:0> require ‘date’
=> true
irb(main):002:0> myd = DateTime.strptime(“1166049481”, ‘%s’)
ArgumentError: 3 elements of civil date are necessary
from lib/ruby/1.8/date.rb:1214:in new_with_hash' from lib/ruby/1.8/date.rb:1238:in strptime’
from (irb):2

I was able to make this work: Date::strptime(“1/1/1970”, ‘%d/%m/%Y’) so
I’m
pretty sure I don’t have a syntax error.

Thanks for any help.

2

Thanks Morton. I did read date/format.rb and in 1.8.4 (what I’m
running) it
supports the %s format which I believe is supposed to represent the
number
of seconds since 1/1/1970. The number I’m passing in represents the
number
of seconds since 1/1/1970.

3

On Dec 13, 2006, at 7:03 PM, Matt G. wrote:

ArgumentError: 3 elements of civil date are necessary
from lib/ruby/1.8/date.rb:1214:in new_with_hash' from lib/ruby/1.8/date.rb:1238:instrptime’
from (irb):2

I was able to make this work: Date::strptime(“1/1/1970”, ‘%d/%m/%
Y’) so I’m
pretty sure I don’t have a syntax error.

DateTime.strptime simply can’t handle “1166049481” as an argument. It
wants something that looks like a date/time stamp that a human might
be able to read. Unfortunately, as you point out, exactly what it
wants isn’t documented. You’re expected to read date/format.rb, which
IMO isn’t easy decipher.

BTW, even if your first argument were acceptable, I think your second
would be ignored – at least in 1.8.2, which is what I’m running, %s
has no effect.

Thanks for any help.

Not much help, I’m afraid, but you did ask for “any help” :slight_smile:

Regards, Morton

4

On 12/14/06, Matt G. [email protected] wrote:

Thanks Morton. I did read date/format.rb and in 1.8.4 (what I’m running) it
supports the %s format which I believe is supposed to represent the number
of seconds since 1/1/1970. The number I’m passing in represents the number
of seconds since 1/1/1970.

It looks like a bug in date/format.rb to me. It also works as you
expect in 1.9. Try this patch:

— format.rb.orig 2006-12-14 17:48:54.000000000 +1100
+++ format.rb 2006-12-15 13:35:23.000000000 +1100
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@

format.rb: Written by Tadayoshi F. 1999-2005

$Id: format.rb,v 2.15 2005-02-06 13:28:48+09 tadf Exp $

+require ‘time’
require ‘rational’

class Date
@@ -138,8 +139,14 @@
elem[:sec] = val
when ‘%s’
return unless str.sub!(/\A(\d+)/o, ‘’)

  •   val = $1.to_i

  •   elem[:seconds] = val

  •    time = Time.at($1.to_i)

  •    elem[:year] = time.year

  •    elem[:mon] = time.mon

  •    elem[:mday] = time.mday

  •    elem[:hour] = time.hour

  •    elem[:min] = time.min

  •   elem[:sec] = time.sec

  •    elem[:offset] = time.utc_offset
 when '%T'
  return unless __strptime(str, '%H:%M:%S', elem)
 when '%t'