Question

I have the following scenario where I have a datetime that I would like to reparse. I can get the following to work in irb, but I seem to be having an issue with nil values when working with post parameters. for ex.

This works in irb:

DateTime.strptime("10/25/2012 04:27 pm", "%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %P").strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:00")
=> "2012-10-25 16:27:00"

However when I try to access a params value I can’t seem to access the value itself. for ex.

def create
  @shipment = params[:shipment]
  @shipment.ship_date = format_date(@shipment.ship_date)
  .
  .
  .
 end     

def format_date(date)
  DateTime.strptime(date, "%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %P").strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:00")
end 

When I set a variable manually with a string it works. When I try to work off the parameter it seems to be nil. even when I do @shipment.ship_date.to_s it converts it to “” I know that parameter is not empty as it shows in the web inspector of my browser. I must not know how to work with parameter values.

Answer 1

format_date(params["shipment"]["ship_date"])

should work