# Yaml and dates

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/yaml-and-dates/145907>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [August 14, 2008, 10:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/yaml-and-dates/145907 "2008-08-14T22:46:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Shadowfirebird](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/97f17d/32.png) [@Shadowfirebird](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Shadowfirebird)\
**Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 10:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/yaml-and-dates/145907/1 "2008-08-14T22:46:43Z")

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It’s turning out to be very difficult to come up with a reliable  
example, but I’m having problems with dates in yaml. Sometimes they  
turn up in Ruby as dates, sometimes as strings.

Is anyone else having this problem?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Shadowfirebird](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/97f17d/32.png) [@Shadowfirebird](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Shadowfirebird)\
**Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/yaml-and-dates/145907/2 "2008-08-14T22:52:35Z")

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This might be it. Understandable but annoying:

irb(main):001:0\> require ‘date’  
=\> true  
irb(main):004:0\> require ‘yaml’  
=\> true  
irb(main):010:0\> a = “2008-08-10”  
=\> “2008-08-10”  
irb(main):011:0\> y = YAML::load(a)  
=\> #\<Date: 4909377/2,0,2299161\>  
irb(main):012:0\> a = “2008-8-10”  
=\> “2008-8-10”  
irb(main):013:0\> y = YAML::load(a)  
=\> “2008-8-10”

Annoying because Date.parse(“2008-8-10”) would be fine.

Can anyone suggest an elegant way to upgrade YAML::load()?