ActiveRecord date field

By accident, I just realized that an ActiveRecord date field can be set using a third way...

foo = Fo.new foo.start_date = Date.new(2016, 1, 31) foo.start_date = '2016-01-31'

and to my surprise...

foo.start_date = '31/1/2016'

Where can I find documentation on this? I've searched to the point of wasting my time.

In the most general case, active record ends up calling Date._parse ( Class: Date (Ruby 2.3.1) ) from the ruby stdlib which tries to guess/handle all sorts of different formats ( https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/trunk/ext/date/date_parse.c ) but without documenting what they are (as far as I can see)

Fred

there are lots, try this eg

just remember, this is ruby, and "foo=" can be a method call.

kind regards --botp