Can't get Ruby strptime to work

Question

I currently have

format = '%d%m%Y:%H:%M:%S'
date_time = '30/Jun/2013:07:38:27'

puts DateTime.strptime(date_time, format)

which returns

ArgumentError: invalid date
    from (irb):95:in 'strptime'
    from (irb):97
    from (irb):usr/bin/irb:12:in '<main>'

How can I make this work?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Your format string doesn't match the format you're actually using. %m is the zero-padded month (01..12), whereas you're using Jun, which calls for %b. You also need to put slashes in to make the format match.

This is all documented.

require 'date'

format = '%d/%b/%Y:%H:%M:%S'
date_time = '30/Jun/2013:07:38:27'
DateTime.strptime(date_time, format)
# => #<DateTime: 2013-06-30T07:38:27+00:00 ((2456474j,27507s,0n),+0s,2299161j)>

Answer 2

The format didn't match what you have in date_time. Particularly, you have slashes and abbreviated month name in date_time. Use this.

format = '%d/%b/%Y:%H:%M:%S'