Timezone ActiveRecord and Rails3

rubyonrails-talk
1

I want to store, retrieve and handle all times inside my app in just one Timezone. => "New Delhi"

for that I've set in my application.rb file,

config.time_zone = "New Delhi"

When i create a record like

Event.create(:when => DateTime.new(2011, 5, 7, 16, 0, 0))

it creates an event record in my mysql db (local) with "when" field as "2011-05-07 16:00:00"

but when I go to console and retrieve the event date like

Event.first.when Sat, 07 May 2011 21:30:00 IST +05:30

It should have given me this instead...

Sat, 07 May 2011 16:00:00 IST +05:30

But when I ask for rails about the timezone in console, it gives me this

Time.zone (GMT+05:30) New Delhi

Am I missing something for configuration? I am not able to understand Timezone and its settings concept in rails3.0. I find very little documentation or text on this subject in internet.. Can you please help me understand the concept here...

:slight_smile: thanks fellow rubyist..

2

I want to store, retrieve and handle all times inside my app in just one Timezone. => "New Delhi"

for that I've set in my application.rb file,

config.time_zone = "New Delhi"

When i create a record like

Event.create(:when => DateTime.new(2011, 5, 7, 16, 0, 0))

I *think* that DateTime.new defaults to UTC rather than using the current timezone. If you want DateTime.new to use the value specified in config.time_zone then I *think* you have use in_time_zone, see DateTime. I prefer to use Time rather than DateTime, then you can use Time.local to create the time.

it creates an event record in my mysql db (local) with "when" field as "2011-05-07 16:00:00"

Values in the db are always in UTC, whatever timezone is specified so that is correct, given that DateTime.new will have created it in UTC

but when I go to console and retrieve the event date like

Event.first.when Sat, 07 May 2011 21:30:00 IST +05:30

Again that is consistent with the value in the db, which is in UTC

Colin