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

I just add the following monkey patch to config/time_formats.rb

class Date
  class << self
    alias :euro_parse :_parse
    def _parse(str,comp=false)
      str = str.to_s.strip
      if str == ''
        {}
      elsif str =~ /^(\d{1,2})[-\/](\d{1,2})[-\/](\d{2,4})/
        year,month,day = $3.to_i,$1,$2
        date,*rest = str.split(' ')
        year += (year < 35 ? 2000 : 1900) if year < 100
        euro_parse("#{year}-#{month}-#{day} #{rest.join(' ')}",comp)
      else
        euro_parse(str,comp)
      end  
    end
  end
end