# Formatting Dates in my view

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formatting-dates-in-my-view/177171>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [October 12, 2009, 8:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formatting-dates-in-my-view/177171 "2009-10-12T20:29:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidstokar)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 8:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formatting-dates-in-my-view/177171/1 "2009-10-12T20:29:51Z")

</div>

Hi,

Currently my dates look like this: 2009-10-10 00:55:37 UTC

I want to format them in my view to look like this: 10 Oct 2009 00:55

Is it possible to do the formatting in the view using the to\_s method?

Thanks,

David

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidstokar)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formatting-dates-in-my-view/177171/2 "2009-10-12T20:36:53Z")

</div>

David S. wrote:

> Currently my dates look like this: 2009-10-10 00:55:37 UTC  
> I want to format them in my view to look like this: 10 Oct 2009 00:55  
> Is it possible to do the formatting in the view using the to\_s method?

How about:  
[http://apidock.com/rails/ActiveSupport/TimeWithZone/to\_s](http://apidock.com/rails/ActiveSupport/TimeWithZone/to_s)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidstokar)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formatting-dates-in-my-view/177171/3 "2009-10-12T20:43:02Z")

</div>

Aldric G. wrote:

> David S. wrote:
> 
> > Currently my dates look like this: 2009-10-10 00:55:37 UTC  
> > I want to format them in my view to look like this: 10 Oct 2009 00:55  
> > Is it possible to do the formatting in the view using the to\_s method?
> 
> How about:  
> [to\_s (ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone) - APIdock](http://apidock.com/rails/ActiveSupport/TimeWithZone/to_s)

Thanks for the quick response. This is exactly what I was looking for!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidstokar)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formatting-dates-in-my-view/177171/4 "2009-10-12T21:41:02Z")

</div>

2009/10/12 David S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid):

> Thanks for the quick response. This is exactly what I was looking for!

You can use strftime if you need more control.

Colin

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidstokar)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 12:52am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formatting-dates-in-my-view/177171/5 "2009-10-13T00:52:28Z")

</div>

Time.now.strftime(“%d %b %Y %H:%M”) =\> “12 Oct 2009 18:50”

On Oct 12, 2:29 pm, David S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidstokar)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 10:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formatting-dates-in-my-view/177171/6 "2009-10-12T22:48:01Z")

</div>

This is how I format dates in one of my projects:

message.created\_at.strftime(“%b %d %Y at %H:%M”)

That gives “Jun 12 2009 at 11:34” if I remember correctly. Just play  
with it, very simple.

[http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Time.html#M000298](http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Time.html#M000298)

Cheers.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@davidstokar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidstokar)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formatting-dates-in-my-view/177171/7 "2009-10-13T16:39:04Z")

</div>

You can put something like this in your environment.rb if you will be  
using that format often:

ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Time::Conversions::DATE\_FORMATS.merge!(  
:show\_time =\> “%l:%M%p”,  
:reminder\_time =\> “%B %d, %Y”,  
:simple\_time =\> “%H:%M:%S”  
)

Then just to something like Time.now.to\_s(:simple\_time)

Don’t forget to restart your server.