# Fun with Time#to\_s and locale

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fun-with-time-to-s-and-locale/95171>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [May 23, 2006, 7:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fun-with-time-to-s-and-locale/95171 "2006-05-23T19:54:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BergerS\_Daniel](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@BergerS\_Daniel](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/BergerS_Daniel)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 7:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fun-with-time-to-s-and-locale/95171/1 "2006-05-23T19:54:33Z")

</div>

Hi all,

I was futzing around with Time objects and locale. Searching the  
archives I didn’t really see anything that let me get Time objects back  
in the locale string that I want.

Did I reinvent the wheel?

require ‘Win32API’

class Time  
GetDateFormat = Win32API.new(‘kernel32’, ‘GetDateFormat’, ‘LLPPPL’,  
‘I’)

def to\_s(lang=0)  
buffer = 0.chr \* 100  
systime = [year, mon, wday, day, hour, min, sec].pack(‘S\*’)  
picture = ‘dddd MMM dd yyyy’ # Or change ‘dddd’ to ‘ddd’

```
  if GetDateFormat.call(lang, 0, systime, picture, buffer,

```

buffer.size) == 0  
raise get\_last\_error  
end

```
  buffer = buffer[/^[^\0]*/ ]

  # Splice the hours, minutes and seconds in
  buffer.split.insert(2, "#{hour}:#{min}:#{sec} #{zone}").join(' ')

```

end  
end

if $0 == **FILE**  
LANG\_FRENCH = 0x0c  
LANG\_GERMAN = 0x07  
LANG\_SPANISH = 0x0a

p Time.now.to\_s # “Tuesday May 11:48:51 MDT 23 2006”  
p Time.now.to\_s(LANG\_GERMAN) # “Dienstag Mai 11:48:51 MDT 23 2006”  
p Time.now.to\_s(LANG\_SPANISH) # “martes may 11:48:51 MDT 23 2006”  
p Time.now.to\_s(LANG\_FRENCH) # “mardi mai 11:48:51 MDT 23 2006”  
end

I’ve no idea how to do this on non-Windows systems. Is there an easier  
way?

Regards,

Dan

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