Question

I have a string that needs to be turned into a date attribute to be stored in a Ruby database.
There is a javascript function that collects the data and submits it to a ruby method which in turn submits to the database. However one of the fields is a “Date” field. Not a “DateTime” field so i cannot use the Date() function provied by js. The string i have is already in the format needed its simply getting the db to recognise this.

the html

<form action="/submiteffort" id="effort_form" method="post">
    <input type="hidden" id="week_commencing" name="week_commencing" value="x">
    <input type="hidden" id="task_id" name="task_id" value="x">
    <input type="hidden" id="effort_hours" name="hours" value="0">
</form>
<!-- Javascript code to submit the hidden form -->
<script>
function submiteffort( elem, name )
{
    var date = getdate();
    $("#week_commencing").val(date);
    $("#effort_hours").val( $( elem ).val() );
    $("#task_id").val( name );
    $("#effort_form").submit();
    return true; 
}

getDate() function

function getdate()
{
    var myspan = document.getElementById('startDate');
    var span_textnode = myspan.firstChild;
    var span_text = span_textnode.data;
    myDateParts = span_text.split("/");

    var d = myDateParts[0];
    var dd = days(d);

    var m = myDateParts[1];
    var subSection2 = m.substring(1,0);

    if (subSection2 == "0") {
            mm = m;
    }
    else {
        mm = "0" + myDateParts[1];
    }


    var yy = myDateParts[2];

    var actDate = yy + "-" + mm + "-" + dd;
    return actDate;
}

submit method in the controller

def submit

    effort = Effort.new
    effort.user_id = 10 #current_user.id
    effort.project_task_id = params[:task_id]
    effort.week_commencing = params[:wc]
    effort.hours = params[:hours]
    effort.save

    respond_to do |format|
      format.html
      format.js 
    end
  end

How do i get my database to recognise that the value i want needs to the a “DATE” and submit it to the database?

Answer 1

If you’re submitting a date in a format that Date recognizes, the conversion should be done for you. This requires that week_commencing is declared as a :date type column.

Have a look at your log/development.log to see what the params are set to for the request in question. Make sure that the generated date is coming through correctly.