# Parse only seem to understand US date format

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-only-seem-to-understand-us-date-format/63526>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [June 15, 2006, 10:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-only-seem-to-understand-us-date-format/63526 "2006-06-15T22:18:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![markh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@markh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/markh)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 10:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-only-seem-to-understand-us-date-format/63526/1 "2006-06-15T22:18:04Z")

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I’ve tried Time.parse() and DateTime.parse() but they interpret the date  
as US format. Is there any way to tell it to interpret as dd/mm/yyyy?

---

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**Author:** ![markh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@markh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/markh)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 11:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-only-seem-to-understand-us-date-format/63526/2 "2006-06-15T23:27:11Z")

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Try my plugin:

[http://svn.viney.net.nz/things/rails/plugins/validates\_date\_time](http://svn.viney.net.nz/things/rails/plugins/validates_date_time)

-Jonathan.

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**Author:** ![markh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@markh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/markh)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 12:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-only-seem-to-understand-us-date-format/63526/3 "2006-06-16T00:49:57Z")

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Jonathan V. wrote:

> Try my plugin:
> 
> [http://svn.viney.net.nz/things/rails/plugins/validates\_date\_time](http://svn.viney.net.nz/things/rails/plugins/validates_date_time)
> 
> -Jonathan.

Thanks, I’ll give it a go. Just have to figure out how to use plug-ins  
(newbie here)

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**Author:** ![markh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@markh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/markh)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 3:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-only-seem-to-understand-us-date-format/63526/4 "2006-06-16T03:24:54Z")

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Have a look at the Rails wiki and the readme

[http://svn.viney.net.nz/things/rails/plugins/validates\_date\_time/README](http://svn.viney.net.nz/things/rails/plugins/validates_date_time/README)

-Jonathan.

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**Author:** ![markh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@markh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/markh)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 10:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parse-only-seem-to-understand-us-date-format/63526/5 "2006-06-16T10:01:35Z")

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Mark Horgan wrote:

> I’ve tried Time.parse() and DateTime.parse() but they interpret the date  
> as US format. Is there any way to tell it to interpret as dd/mm/yyyy?

You can easily override ParseDate to handle other formats, I did that  
for euro format dd.mm.yyyy.

require (‘parsedate’)  
module ParseDate  
class \<\< self  
alias\_method :old\_parsedate, :parsedate unless  
method\_defined?(:old\_parsedate)  
end

def self.parsedate(str)  
match = /(\d{1,2}).(\d{1,2}).(\d{2,4}).?/.match(str)  
return ParseDate.old\_parsedate(str) unless match  
[match[3].to\_i, match[2].to\_i, match[1].to\_i, nil, nil, nil, nil,  
nil]  
end  
end

hope this helps you.  
Bojan M.

–  
Bojan M.  
Informatika Mihelac, Bojan M. s.p. | [www.informatikamihelac.com](http://www.informatikamihelac.com)  
 → tools, scripts, tricks from our code lab: [http://source.mihelac.org](http://source.mihelac.org)