How would you store a business's hours in the db/model of a Rails app?

Question

I\'m creating a Rails app that will store the opening and closing hours for a business. Originally, I thought of simply using a text data type and letting it be free-form:

Answer 1

In this case, I would probably do something relational, perhaps with STI if you wanted to have certain days where the business is closed (e.g. non-recurring closings). Here's a basic STI example:

class Business < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :open_time_blocks
  has_many :closed_time_blocks

  def open?(time)
    # false if time is "inside" any of the closed_time_blocks
    # else is true if inside any of the open_time_blocks
    # else is false
  end

  def closed?(time)
    !open?
  end
end

# == Schema Information
#
# Table name: time_blocks
#
#  id          :integer         not null, primary key
#  business_id :integer
#  type        :string(255)
#  start_at    :datetime
#  end_at      :datetime
#  created_at  :datetime
#  updated_at  :datetime
class TimeBlock < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :business
end

class OpenTimeBlock < TimeBlock; end
class ClosedTimeBlock < TimeBlock; end