Question

I want to change a string returned from the following format to a date that shows how many months days since the last order was placed from a customer, I have the following code on the page to get the result –

<% @lastorder = Order.select("DateCreated").where("customer_id == ?", customer.id).order("Datecreated desc").find(:all, :limit => 1) %>

but this then returns the following format –

 [#<Order DateCreated: "2013-01-09 00:00:00">]

There is probably a better way to do this but I am unaware of it at the moment.

Answer 1

I would rewrite your query like that :

@last_order = Order
  .where(customer_id: customer.id) # No need to use prepared statement here
  .order('DateCreated DESC')
  .pluck('DateCreated')            # Directly select 1 column
  .first()                         # Only select the first record

If you want to display the time distance in words, you should use the rails helper : distance_of_time_in_words_to_now(@last_order)

Info: Just discover than distance_of_time_in_words_to_now is an alias of time_ago_in_words, shorter.