Ruby: combine Date and Time objects into a DateTime

Question

Simple question, but I can\'t find a good or definitive answer. What is the best and most efficient way to combine Ruby Date and Time objects (objects, not

Answer 1

If you are using Ruby on Rails, this works great.

I built a method to extend the DateTime class to combine a date and a time. It takes the zone from the date so that it does not end up an hour off with daylight savings time.

Also, for convenience, I like being able to pass in strings as well.

class DateTime
  def self.combine(d, t)
    # pass in a date and time or strings
    d = Date.parse(d) if d.is_a? String 
    t = Time.zone.parse(t) if t.is_a? String
    # + 12 hours to make sure we are in the right zone
    # (eg. PST and PDT switch at 2am)
    zone = (Time.zone.parse(d.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")) + 12.hours ).zone
    new(d.year, d.month, d.day, t.hour, t.min, t.sec, zone)
  end
end

So you can do:

DateTime.combine(3.weeks.ago, "9am")

or

DateTime.combine("2015-3-26", Time.current)

etc...