Format DateTime in Text Box in Rails

Question

Is there an easy way to format the display of a DateTime value in a Rails view?

For example, if I\'m doing something like:

<%= text_field         


        

Answer 1

In a helper

def l(value, options = {})
   return nil unless value.present?
   value = value.to_date if value.is_a? String
   super(value, options)
end

Then in the view

<%= f.text_field :end_date, class: "datepicker" :value => l(@activity.end_date) %>

Here l is a rails helper (I18n.l) which can be locale specific and can take a format. Examples:

l(@activity.end_date, format: :short)
l(@activity.end_date, format: "%d-%m-%Y")