Strategy for handling historical dates while avoiding timezones

[david10 (david)]

Currently using t.datetime, dates get stored with a timezone and a non-
zero time. This is bad.

A date restricted to the Unix epoch is unacceptable. The date range
must be at least back to 1800.

Need a recommendation on what SQL column type, Rails column type and
Ruby object type would be the best choice, and how to avoid timezones.

[Frederick_Cheung]

an sql DATE column (which maps to the ruby Date type) would seem to
fit. You've got several thousand years of range, no timezone problems
since it's a pure calendar day type.

Fred

[david10 (david)]

an sql DATE column (which maps to the ruby Date type) would seem to
fit. You've got several thousand years of range, no timezone problems
since it's a pure calendar day type.

Yes, indeed, that solves my problem. Ta very much. Just didn't know
where to look.

90% of my problems with Ruby/Rails eventually translate into: "Where
is the documentation/source code for the thing that does X?"

If I had a general solution to THAT problem, life would be sweet.

David