Ruby: Convert time to seconds?

Question

How can I convert a time like 10:30 to seconds? Is there some sort of built in Ruby function to handle that?

Basically trying to figure out the number of seconds fro

Answer 1

The built in time library extends the Time class to parse strings, so you could use that. They're ultimately represented as seconds since the UNIX epoch, so converting to integers and subtracting should get you what you want.

require 'time'
m = Time.parse('00:00')
t = Time.parse('10:30')

(t.to_i - m.to_i)
=> 37800

There's also some sugar in ActiveSupport to handle these types of things.