[ruby-on-rails] Transform DateTime into simple Date in Ruby on Rails

I have a datetime column in db that I want to transform into a simple date when I show it to users.

How can I do that?

def shown_date
  # to_date does not exist, but is what I am looking for
  self.date || self.exif_date_time_original.to_date 
end

Try converting the entry to a string first. As long as the database column type is a date it will be formated as a date.

self.date || self.exif_date_time_original.to_s

For old Ruby (1.8.x):

myDate = Date.parse(myDateTime.to_s)

Hello collimarco :) you can use ruby strftime method to create ur own date/time display.

time.strftime( string ) => string

  %a - The abbreviated weekday name (``Sun'')
  %A - The  full  weekday  name (``Sunday'')
  %b - The abbreviated month name (``Jan'')
  %B - The  full  month  name (``January'')
  %c - The preferred local date and time representation
  %d - Day of the month (01..31)
  %H - Hour of the day, 24-hour clock (00..23)
  %I - Hour of the day, 12-hour clock (01..12)
  %j - Day of the year (001..366)
  %m - Month of the year (01..12)
  %M - Minute of the hour (00..59)
  %p - Meridian indicator (``AM''  or  ``PM'')
  %S - Second of the minute (00..60)
  %U - Week  number  of the current year,
          starting with the first Sunday as the first
          day of the first week (00..53)
  %W - Week  number  of the current year,
          starting with the first Monday as the first
          day of the first week (00..53)
  %w - Day of the week (Sunday is 0, 0..6)
  %x - Preferred representation for the date alone, no time
  %X - Preferred representation for the time alone, no date
  %y - Year without a century (00..99)
  %Y - Year with century
  %Z - Time zone name
  %% - Literal ``%'' character

   t = Time.now
   t.strftime("Printed on %m/%d/%Y")   #=> "Printed on 04/09/2003"
   t.strftime("at %I:%M%p")            #=> "at 08:56AM"

I recently wrote a gem to simplify this process and to neaten up your views, etc etc.

Check it out at: http://github.com/platform45/easy_dates

In Ruby 1.9.2 and above they added a .to_date function to DateTime:

http://ruby-doc.org/stdlib-1.9.2/libdoc/date/rdoc/DateTime.html#method-i-to_date

This instance method doesn't appear to be present in earlier versions like 1.8.7.