How do I change the format ActiveRecord expects when parsing dates from a text field in a form?

Question

The problem

1. I have a Ruby on Rails model with a Date attribute.
2. In the form for this model, I am using a single text field with a JQuery datepicker

Answer 1

The timeliness gem makes ruby date/time parsing much more customizeable and integrates well with Rails.

Since you're working with Rails, be sure to check out the validates_timeliness project as well by the same guy. It includes all of timeliness plus sophisticated date/time validation methods for ActiveModel.