# Parse date fields from mysql database

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-date-fields-from-mysql-database/75259>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [November 8, 2006, 4:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-date-fields-from-mysql-database/75259 "2006-11-08T16:25:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/848f3c/32.png) [@bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bartb)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 4:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-date-fields-from-mysql-database/75259/1 "2006-11-08T16:25:33Z")

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I would like to be able to parse date fields from a MySQL database in  
order  
to get the day, year, hour etc. separately. Which library could do that  
for  
me? I can’t think that I would have to parse those dates myself, right?

Bart

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**Author:** ![bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/848f3c/32.png) [@bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bartb)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 4:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-date-fields-from-mysql-database/75259/2 "2006-11-08T16:35:37Z")

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Il giorno 08/nov/06, alle ore 16:25, Bart B. ha scritto:

> I would like to be able to parse date fields from a MySQL database  
> in order  
> to get the day, year, hour etc. separately. Which library could do  
> that for  
> me? I can’t think that I would have to parse those dates myself,  
> right?

Just use Date#day, Date#year, Date#hour and so on.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/848f3c/32.png) [@bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bartb)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 4:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-date-fields-from-mysql-database/75259/3 "2006-11-08T16:51:40Z")

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On Thu, 9 Nov 2006, Bart B. wrote:

> I would like to be able to parse date fields from a MySQL database in order  
> to get the day, year, hour etc. separately. Which library could do that for  
> me? I can’t think that I would have to parse those dates myself, right?

require ‘time’

parsed\_time = Time.parse(mysql\_datetime)

If the mysql field has a value that is outside the range for Ruby’s Time  
class, you can use DateTime:

require ‘date’

parsed\_time = DateTime.parse(mysql\_datetime)

Kirk H.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/848f3c/32.png) [@bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bartb)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 8:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-date-fields-from-mysql-database/75259/4 "2006-11-08T20:32:21Z")

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removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote:

> parsed\_time = DateTime.parse(mysql\_datetime)

Combined with the methods from Gabriele this works perfectly, thanks!

Bart

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/848f3c/32.png) [@bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bartb)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 9:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-date-fields-from-mysql-database/75259/5 "2006-11-08T21:04:26Z")

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On 08/nov/06, at 20:30, Bart B. wrote:

> removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote:
> 
> > parsed\_time = DateTime.parse(mysql\_datetime)
> 
> Combined with the methods from Gabriele this works perfectly, thanks!

Oops! Sorry, I thought you were using ActiveRecord, so it was already  
parsed 🙂  
Give it a look, of course you can use it outside Rails, if you need  
it: [http://rubyonrails.org/api/classes/ActiveRecord/Base.html](http://rubyonrails.org/api/classes/ActiveRecord/Base.html)