rails dates with json

Question

I am implementing a Facebook application and using AJAX/JSON.

However the JSON structures that are returned have this format 2010-05-30T06:14:00Z.

I'm calling Game.all.to_json in controller action.

How can I convert them to a normal date format?

Is it easier to do it from the server side or the client side using fbjs? There are a lot of bugs with fbjs.

So i would prefer using a solution from the Server side using (Active Records). Like converting the data before sending the JSON structures.

That works: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5370061/format-date-time-in-find-operation-in-rails-3/7479550#7479550 — hipertracker, Sep 20 '11 at 02:59

score 47 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 29 '10 at 22:50

47

The way I added my own custom format to the json I was returning was to add a monkey patch to the ActiveSupport TimeWithZone class.

Add a file in the config/initializers folder with the following contents:

class ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone
    def as_json(options = {})
        strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
    end
end

answered Oct 29 '10 at 22:50

Geekygecko

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1

This works great for me, but now I'm trying to do a similar thing for a Date object (returned using date_select). I've tried replacing ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone with ActiveSupport::Date, but no joy. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. – Snips Feb 02 '11 at 11:37
3

Might be helpful to add %z for timezone. – tbeseda Feb 18 '11 at 18:45
@Geekygecko I upvoted your answer. I used this approach and it works great for a datetime field associated with a Model, not for datetime field from other table in a AREL query with joins. – GeorgeW Oct 27 '12 at 02:17
1

Ok here's a question: doesn't this completely destroy the functionality of the original as_json funtion ? If not, why not ? See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9280744/rails-to-json-uses-different-date-formats-that-to-s – Cosmin Atanasiu Jun 25 '13 at 03:40
With timezone, strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %z') – cevaris Apr 01 '14 at 18:52

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 06 '12 at 00:04

7

With timezone working in all major browsers and ie7+:

class ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone
  def as_json(options = {})
    strftime('%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S %z')
  end
end

answered Jun 06 '12 at 00:04

DrewB

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score 5 · Answer 3 · answered May 31 '17 at 14:11

5

Rails now has the .as_json method on the DateTime object. Life made easier.

answered May 31 '17 at 14:11

Igbanam

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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 01 '13 at 19:03

If you want to do this with client-side javascript, you can parse individual dates with something like this:

prettyDate = function(dateString) {
  var day, formatted, jsDate, month;

  jsDate = new Date(dateString);
  day = jsDate.getMonth() + 1 < 10 ? "0" + (jsDate.getMonth() + 1) : "" + (jsDate.getMonth() + 1);
  month = jsDate.getDate() < 10 ? "0" + (jsDate.getDate()) : "" + (jsDate.getDate());

  formatted = "" + day + "/" + month + "/" + (jsDate.getFullYear());
  return formatted;
};

You'll need some additional code if your needing to format time of course.

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 17 '14 at 12:36

2

You can override method as_json in your model as:

class Game
  def as_json(options = {})
    super.merge(time: time.strftime('%d.%m.%Y %H:%M:%S'))
  end
end

answered Oct 17 '14 at 12:36

crabvk

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 08 '10 at 05:08

1

Definitely easier to do it on the server side. You can do a gsub regex to put it into the format you want, or a time.strftime, then generating your json with that string.

answered Jun 08 '10 at 05:08

porkeypop

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score 0 · Answer 7 · edited Sep 21 '12 at 13:04

0

Time.parse < datetime >

simples.

edited Sep 21 '12 at 13:04

Baz

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answered Sep 21 '12 at 12:59

Mike Campbell

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rails dates with json

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