ruby-on-railsrubydatetimeruby-on-rails-3.2timezone

How to create a Ruby DateTime from existing Time.zone for Rails?

I have users entering in dates in a Ruby on Rails website. I parse the dates into a DateTime object with something like:

date = DateTime.new(params[:year].to_i, params[:month].to_i, params[:day].to_i, params[:hour].to_i, params[:minute].to_i)

or

date = DateTime.parse(params[:date])

Both DateTimes will not be in the time zone of the user which I previously set with something like:

Time.zone = "Pacific Time (US & Canada)"

How do I parse the above DateTimes to be in the right time zone? I know the DateTime.new method has a 7th argument for the time offset. Is there an easy way to look up the offset for a time zone in a given time? Or should I be using something other than DateTime?

Solution

  • You can use Time.zone.local if you set Time.zone previously:

    user_time = Time.zone.local(params[:year].to_i, params[:month].to_i, params[:day].to_i, params[:hour].to_i, params[:minute].to_i, 0)

    Have a look at the ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone documentation.