CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsruby
Toby Joiner
Toby Joiner

Reputation: 4376

Convert DateTime String to UTC in rails

I have a string like this:

"2010-01-01 12:30:00"

I need that to convert to UTC from the current local time zone.

I tried this, but it seems to think that the string is already UTC.

"2010-01-01 12:30:00".to_datetime.in_time_zone("Central Time (US & Canada)")
=> Fri, 01 Jan 2010 06:30:00 CST -06:00

I am not sure where to go from here.

added this from my comment:

>> Time.zone = "Pacific Time (US & Canada)"
=> "Pacific Time (US & Canada)"
>> Time.parse("2010-10-27 00:00:00").getutc
=> Wed Oct 27 06:00:00 UTC 2010
>> Time.zone = "Mountain Time (US & Canada)"
=> "Mountain Time (US & Canada)"
>> Time.parse("2010-10-27 00:00:00").getutc
=> Wed Oct 27 06:00:00 UTC 2010

Thanks for any help.

Upvotes: 43

Views: 60025

Answers (3)

zetetic
zetetic

Reputation: 47588

Time.parse("2010-01-01 12:30:00").getutc

EDIT

(grinding teeth while thinking about the nightmare which is Ruby/Rails date/time handling)

OK, how about this:

Time.zone.parse("2010-01-01 12:30:00").utc

Note that Time.zone.parse returns a DateTime, while appending the .utc gives you a Time. There are differences, so beware.

Also, Time.zone is part of Rails (ActiveSupport), not Ruby. Just so you know.

Upvotes: 66

Deepak Mahakale
Deepak Mahakale

Reputation: 23711

In Rails 4 and above you can directly use in_time_zone

"2010-01-01 12:30:00".in_time_zone
#=> Fri, 01 Jan 2010 12:30:00 EST -05:00

"2010-01-01 12:30:00".in_time_zone.utc
#=> 2010-01-01 17:30:00 UTC

Upvotes: 13

d.danailov
d.danailov

Reputation: 9810

For APIs you can use: 

utc_date = Time.parse("2013-05-31 00:00").utc.iso8601 #=> Result will be: 2013-05-30T21:00:00Z

You can check these articles:

Upvotes: 12

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