Format DateTime in Text Box in Rails

Question

Is there an easy way to format the display of a DateTime value in a Rails view?

For example, if I\'m doing something like:

<%= text_field         


        

Answer 1

This can be handled DRYly at the model layer using the Rails-provided _before_type_cast method variant. Rails already uses this method for doing just this type of formatting, so we're just overwriting the default. For example:

class MyModel
   def start_date_before_type_cast
      return unless self[:start_date]
      self[:start_date].strftime('%m/%d/%Y')
   end
end

This way, anywhere you have a text field for the MyModel#start_date field you get formatting for "free".