CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsdatefaker
jLuc
jLuc

Reputation: 386

using faker gem to generate date

I'm using factory girl and faker to generate data for a rails app. The trouble is, faker's docs don't say anything about generating random dates.

Here is my existing code. As you can see, I'm unsure of how to proceed after start_date. How can I generate a date?

Thanks in advance :)

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :registration_form do
    first_name   Faker::Name.first_name
    last_name    Faker::Name.last_name
    email        Faker::Internet.safe_email
    phone_number Faker::PhoneNumber.phone_number
    twitter      Faker::Internet.user_name
    skype        Faker::Internet.user_name
    start_date   Faker:: ???????????
  end
end

Upvotes: 2

Views: 11557

Answers (6)

Joshua Pinter
Joshua Pinter

Reputation: 47601

Faker Now Supports Times and Dates.

Not sure when they put this in but the latest version supports Times, which you can convert to a Date quite easily, if that's required.

Here are some key methods:

# Random date between dates
Faker::Time.between(from: 2.days.ago, to: Time.now)             #=> "2014-09-18 12:30:59 -0700"

# Random date between dates (within specified part of the day)
Faker::Time.between(from: 2.days.ago, to: Time.now, period: :all)       #=> "2014-09-19 07:03:30 -0700"
Faker::Time.between(from: 2.days.ago, to: Time.now, period: :day)       #=> "2014-09-18 16:28:13 -0700"
Faker::Time.between(from: 2.days.ago, to: Time.now, period: :night)     #=> "2014-09-20 19:39:38 -0700"
Faker::Time.between(from: 2.days.ago, to: Time.now, period: :morning)   #=> "2014-09-19 08:07:52 -0700"
Faker::Time.between(from: 2.days.ago, to: Time.now, period: :afternoon) #=> "2014-09-18 12:10:34 -0700"
Faker::Time.between(from: 2.days.ago, to: Time.now, period: :evening)   #=> "2014-09-19 20:21:03 -0700"
Faker::Time.between(from: 2.days.ago, to: Time.now, period: :midnight)  #=> "2014-09-20 00:40:14 -0700"

# Random time in the future (up to maximum of N days)
Faker::Time.forward(days: 23, period: :morning)                     #=> "2014-09-26 06:54:47 -0700"

# Random time in the past (up to maximum of N days)
Faker::Time.backward(days: 14, period: :evening)                    #=> "2014-09-17 19:56:33 -0700"

Upvotes: 8

Peter Tadros
Peter Tadros

Reputation: 9317

You can generate random dates like below

Faker::Date.between(2.days.ago, Date.today) #=> "Wed, 24 Sep 2014"

You can find more options here https://github.com/stympy/faker/blob/master/doc/default/date.md

Upvotes: 0

ryan0
ryan0

Reputation: 1525

Use the credit card expiration date:

Faker::Business.credit_card_expiry_date

Upvotes: 1

Saggex
Saggex

Reputation: 3500

Instead of usin Faker, you could render a random Date withou faker, by usin 

Time.at(0.0 + rand * (Time.now.to_f - 0.0.to_f)).to_date

AFAIK it is faster and you can use it in many more ways. If you need another Range than 1970-01-01 to today, you can also use 

   Time.at(Time.new(1990).to_f + rand * (Time.now.to_f - Time.new(1990).to_f)).to_date

Upvotes: 0

user740584
user740584

Reputation:

I would use Faker::Number.number to vary the date relative to today.

e.g.

start_date  { Date.today - Faker::Number.number(3).to_i.days }

Alternatively, if you don't want to use Faker, you could generate random future or past dates like this:

rand(1.year).from_now
rand(1.year).ago

Upvotes: 3

Bob Roberts
Bob Roberts

Reputation: 1021

The faker gem does have as far as I know one date use and that is for credit card expiration date.

Depending on the usage, you can just set dates in your factory. This could be like:

start_date Date.today + 7.days (1.week, 1.month etc)

Upvotes: 1

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