# Re: parsedate doesn't work on Time.now.to\_s

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-parsedate-doesnt-work-on-time-now-to-s/59527>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [May 3, 2006, 9:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-parsedate-doesnt-work-on-time-now-to-s/59527 "2006-05-03T21:32:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**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 3, 2006, 9:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-parsedate-doesnt-work-on-time-now-to-s/59527/1 "2006-05-03T21:32:59Z")

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> > You are absolutely right. I have logged it as a bug.
> 
> I think the bug is with Time.now, the format of its output is  
> not correct.
> 
> This is possibly a problem with the configuration of the  
> system, of of how it uses strftime(), since Time is a thin  
> wrapper around time\_t, and strftime().
> 
> Sam

Take a look at time\_to\_s in time.c and you’ll see this line:

len = strftime(buf, 128, “%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z %Y”, &tobj-\>tm);

The ‘issue’ is %Z. Reading the man page on Solaris is merely says “time  
zone name or abbreviation”. How it determines which to use, I’m not  
sure. On Windows it’s apparently controlled by a registry setting  
somewhere (Windows also supports %z). So, my guess is most \*nix systems  
default to the abbreviation, while Windows defaults to the long name.

I don’t think we need to fix time\_to\_s, however. We need to fix  
ParseDate.

Regards,

Dan

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<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 3, 2006, 9:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-parsedate-doesnt-work-on-time-now-to-s/59527/2 "2006-05-03T21:39:17Z")

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On 5/3/06, Berger, Daniel [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> I don’t think we need to fix time\_to\_s, however. We need to fix  
> ParseDate.

> > Time.now.strftime(“%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %z %Y”)  
> > =\> “Wed May 03 15:37:18 Eastern Daylight Time 2006”

Note the use of “%z” as opposed to “%Z”. Windows is hosed.

-austin

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<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 3, 2006, 11:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-parsedate-doesnt-work-on-time-now-to-s/59527/3 "2006-05-03T23:09:41Z")

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On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 04:37:56AM +0900, Austin Z. wrote:

> > I don’t think we need to fix time\_to\_s, however. We need to fix  
> > ParseDate.
> 
> > > Time.now.strftime("%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %z %Y")  
> > > =\> “Wed May 03 15:37:18 Eastern Daylight Time 2006”
> 
> Note the use of “%z” as opposed to “%Z”. Windows is hosed.

The 1.8.4 source doesn’t document %z as an allowed conversion. The linux  
man page describes it as a GNU extension:

%z The time-zone as hour offset from GMT. Required to emit  
RFC822-conformant dates (using “%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z”). (GNU)

So while I think Windows is hosed as a general principle, I think its  
within its rights in this case.

The ruby code isn’t validating the string input, just passing it to the  
strftime(), if ruby is supposed to support %z portably, it will have to  
do it itself. Its kindof useful to be able to use the local extensions,  
of course:

ruby -e ‘p Time.now.strftime("%P %r")’  
“pm 01:59:33 PM”

even if not very portable. Kind of a pain to have to reimplement library  
functions, but when they give access to non-standard behaviour, what is  
the right approach?

Cheers,  
Sam