# Re: ParseDate.parsedate() and Time.now()

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-parsedate-parsedate-and-time-now/64983>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [August 15, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-parsedate-parsedate-and-time-now/64983 "2006-08-15T16:01:58Z")\
**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:** [August 15, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-parsedate-parsedate-and-time-now/64983/1 "2006-08-15T16:01:58Z")

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> I’m not sure it’ll change. You’re on Windows, and Windows is  
> stupid this way, preferring to spell out “Central Daylight  
> Time” instead of “CDT”; I have yet to figure out how to get  
> the output from a Windows format string to be abbreviated or  
> better yet to return a +/- offset.

Modify your registry:

[http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=123&thread=158847](http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=123&thread=158847)

Or did you mean something else?

Regards,

Dan

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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:** [August 15, 2006, 4:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-parsedate-parsedate-and-time-now/64983/2 "2006-08-15T16:53:48Z")

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On 8/15/06, Berger, Daniel [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> Modify your registry:  
> [Ruby Buzz Forum - Dealing with TZ parsing (on Windows)](http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=123&thread=158847)

Useful. You realize it points to your own blog, don’t you? 😉

> Or did you mean something else?

We should probably fix ParseDate. But that’s hard and ugly.

-austin

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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:** [August 15, 2006, 5:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-parsedate-parsedate-and-time-now/64983/3 "2006-08-15T17:11:50Z")

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On Tue, 15 Aug 2006, Berger, Daniel wrote:

> > 
> 
> Or did you mean something else?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Dan

why aren’t you guys just using a decent date format?

require ‘time’

now = Time.now

iso8601 = now.iso8601(2)

puts iso8601

now2 = Time.parse(iso8601)

iso86012 = now2.iso8601(2)

my rules for dealing with dates are

- do everything in gmt

- if, and only if, that cannot be done do all calculations/formatting  
using  
iso8601. it sorts as strings and is parseable by just about any  
decent  
application including databases and does not require tzinfo.

regards.

-a