Question

I have set

config.time_zone = 'Berlin'
config.active_record.default_timezone = :local

in “application.rb” and restartet WEBrick Webserver an “remigrated” (rake db:drop; rake db:migrate) my database.

If I check Entries in my Database, everything is fine and the “created_at” is correctly saved in my Localtimezone:

sqlite> select created_at from docversions;
2011-08-22 23:27:51.138723
sqlite>

But in this case, this “Local Timezone” doesnt work:

(creat.html.erb)

<%= form_for :token, :url => {:action => "save_token"}, :docversion_id => params[:id] do |f| %>
<%= f.datetime_select :validuntil, :order => [:day, :month, :year, :hour, :minute], :default => 3.days.from_now,  %>
<%= f.submit %>

(tokenadmin_controller.rb)

class TokenadminController < ApplicationController
  def save_token
    @token = Token.new
    civildate = DateTime.civil(params[:token]["validuntil(1i)"].to_i,
                               params[:token]["validuntil(2i)"].to_i,
                               params[:token]["validuntil(3i)"].to_i,
                               params[:token]["validuntil(4i)"].to_i,
                               params[:token]["validuntil(5i)"].to_i)
    @token.validuntil = civildate
    if @token.save
      flash[:notice] = "Token created."
      redirect_to :controller => :tokenadmin, :action => :admin
    else
      flash[:error] = "Token could not be saved!"
      redirect_to :controller => "index"
    end 
  end 
end

It seems that it would be saved as UTC:

sqlite> select validuntil, created_at from tokens;
2011-08-22 01:44:00.000000|2011-08-22 23:44:20.640434
sqlite>

As you can see, created_at is correctly saved as Localtime, but validuntil is saved +2h (but i have selected the same time as create_at ;-)). I think its +2h because were in a timezone wich is UTC+1 and in DST UTC+2. And were in DST at the moment.

Is that a bug, or did I do something wrong?

Thanks for your help.

UPDATE AFTER POST FROM “BaronVonBraun”:

Thanks! Its working now.
Databasefield is still “timestamp”:

t.timestamp :validuntil

Controller code, wich is use to create a Time-field:

Before:

civildate = DateTime.civil(params[:token]["validuntil(1i)"].to_i,
                           params[:token]["validuntil(2i)"].to_i,
                           params[:token]["validuntil(3i)"].to_i,
                           params[:token]["validuntil(4i)"].to_i,
                           params[:token]["validuntil(5i)"].to_i)

After:

civildate = Time.parse("#{params[:token]["validuntil(1i)"].to_s}-#{params[:token]["validuntil(2i)"].to_s}-#{params[:token]["validuntil(3i)"].to_s} #{params[:token]["validuntil(4i)"].to_s}:#{params[:token]["validuntil(5i)"].to_s}")

Answer 1

DateTime objects are in GMT/UTC (+0000 offset) by default.

If you want to store your local timezone along with your date object, I’d suggest using Time instead of DateTime, which should use the timezone you’ve set in your Rails config.

If you need to continue using DateTime, here is an answer to another question: How do I alter the timezone of a DateTime in Ruby?. However, in that solution, it sets the timezone to a hard offset, meaning it wouldn’t handle going in and out of DST.