# String date parsing

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-date-parsing/52540>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [January 16, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-date-parsing/52540 "2006-01-16T04:00:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Derek\_DeVries](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/cab0a1/32.png) [@Derek\_DeVries](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Derek_DeVries)\
**Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-date-parsing/52540/1 "2006-01-16T04:00:54Z")

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Does anyone know if a Ruby package has been written to handle  
functionality similar to php’s strtotime(). I’m looking for something  
that can parse almost any string (such as “1 day ago”, “+1 week”,  
“last tuesday”) into a timestamp.

I’ve played with ParseDate, but it doesn’t seem to do what I need. Any  
suggestions?

Derek

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**Author:** ![Derek\_DeVries](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/cab0a1/32.png) [@Derek\_DeVries](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Derek_DeVries)\
**Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 4:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-date-parsing/52540/2 "2006-01-16T04:06:54Z")

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Derek DeVries wrote:

> Does anyone know if a Ruby package has been written to handle  
> functionality similar to php’s strtotime(). I’m looking for something  
> that can parse almost any string (such as “1 day ago”, “+1 week”,  
> “last tuesday”) into a timestamp.
> 
> I’ve played with ParseDate, but it doesn’t seem to do what I need. Any  
> suggestions?
> 
> Derek

I was looking into this a bit myself recently. There are some SQL  
functions in MySQL that might be helpful, but I haven’t found a true  
ruby implementation of this yet.

\_Kevin

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**Author:** ![Derek\_DeVries](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/cab0a1/32.png) [@Derek\_DeVries](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Derek_DeVries)\
**Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 4:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-date-parsing/52540/3 "2006-01-16T04:24:57Z")

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Search the mail archives for this… someone just posted an announcement  
in the last day  
or so about a package they wrote that does this. It was pretty  
impressive… understood  
all your examples I think…

b

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Derek\_DeVries](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/cab0a1/32.png) [@Derek\_DeVries](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Derek_DeVries)\
**Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 5:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-date-parsing/52540/4 "2006-01-16T05:09:14Z")

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Ben M. wrote:

> Search the mail archives for this… someone just posted an announcement  
> in the last day  
> or so about a package they wrote that does this. It was pretty  
> impressive… understood  
> all your examples I think…
> 
> b

I think that was a JS date select widget. While useful for interfaces,  
I don’t think you can easily use it for other purposes.

\_Kevin