Rails: How to parse date-time string into a specific time zone

Question

I\'m using Rails 3.2 and ruby 1.9.3 on Debian. I have an app that collects a date, time, and timezone in the form of strings via an HTML form. Something like this:

Answer 1

Use String#in_time_zone (Rails 4+)

I personally prefer using String#in_time_zone:

>> '22.09.1986 10:30'.in_time_zone('Central Time (US & Canada)')
# => Mon, 22 Sep 1986 10:30:00 CDT -05:00

This parses the date and time in the String into the time zone provided.