# Strftime and AM/PM

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strftime-and-am-pm/120034>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [November 13, 2007, 7:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strftime-and-am-pm/120034 "2007-11-13T07:06:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecccb3/32.png) [@apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/apie)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2007, 7:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strftime-and-am-pm/120034/1 "2007-11-13T07:06:38Z")

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Hi all

I am trying to format a mysql datetime attribute in my view.  
I have tried strftime(%r) as well as strftime(’%I:%M:%p’)

In neither of the cases do I get the AM/PM parts.

Anyone have a clue/pointer?

thanks  
Ivor

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecccb3/32.png) [@apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/apie)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2007, 8:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strftime-and-am-pm/120034/2 "2007-11-13T08:23:15Z")

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Add %p to the format string to get AM/PM, i.e.

Time.now.strftime("%p") yields either AM or PM 🙂

Cheers,  
James

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecccb3/32.png) [@apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/apie)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2007, 9:17am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strftime-and-am-pm/120034/3 "2007-11-13T09:17:05Z")

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Strange - I can see that it works in IRB, but its not working in my  
rails console.

There must be something in legacy code that is overriding strftime.

thanks anyway.

Ivor