Rails date format in a text_field

Question

I have a rails form that displays a date in a text_field:

<%= form.text_field :check_in_date  %>

The date is rendered as yyyy-m

Answer 1

I added these to my initializers/time_formats.rb and it works great:

# Default format for displaying dates and times
Date::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = "%m/%d/%Y"
Time::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = "%m/%d/%Y"

Using Ruby 1.9.3 and Rails 3.2.x

Answer 2

config/initializers/date_format.rb

ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Date::Conversions::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = '%m/%d/%Y'

view

<%= form.text_field :check_in_date, value: model.check_in_date.to_s %>

Answer 3

So I did something like this in the model.

def start_date
  super.strftime "%Y/%m/%d %H:%M"
end

Say you have a column called start_date in model, and want to display another format in the form, just overwrite its value in model.

And nothing needs to be changed in the form.

<%= f.text_field :start_date, class: 'form-control' %>

Answer 4

A slight improvement of Tom Rossis answer is to use the I18n.localize method, so the default will always be in the current users locale:

initializers/date_time_i18n_formatter.rb

Date::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = ->(date) { I18n.localize date, format: :default }
Time::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = ->(time) { I18n.localize time, format: :default }

Answer 5

Go to your environment.rb file and add the following:

ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Date::Conversions::DATE_FORMATS.merge!(
  :default => '%m-%d-%Y' ) 

Check the official documentation if you feel like reading more :)

Answer 6

This one use location, in your form:

<%= f.text_field :date3, value: ( l @model.date3 if @model.date3? ) %>

In locations en.yml (or es.yml)

en:
  date:
    formats:
      default: "%d/%m/%Y"