How do I parse and format date data? - ruby

Question

I wrote code to display tweets from a public account on Twitter:
require 'rubygems'
require 'oauth'
require 'json'
# Now you will fetch /1.1/statuses/user_timeline.json,
# returns a list of public Tweets from the specified
# account.
baseurl = "https://api.twitter.com"
path = "/1.1/statuses/user_timeline.json"
query = URI.encode_www_form(
"screen_name" => "CVecchioFX",
"count" => 10,
)
address = URI("#{baseurl}#{path}?#{query}")
request = Net::HTTP::Get.new address.request_uri
# Print data about a list of Tweets
def print_timeline(tweets)
# ADD CODE TO ITERATE THROUGH EACH TWEET AND PRINT ITS TEXT
tweets.each do |tweet|
puts "#{tweet["user"]["name"]} , #{tweet["text"]} , #{tweet["created_at"]} , # {tweet["id"]}"
end
end
# Set up HTTP.
http = Net::HTTP.new address.host, address.port
http.use_ssl = true
http.verify_mode = OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_PEER
# If you entered your credentials in the first
# exercise, no need to enter them again here. The
# ||= operator will only assign these values if
# they are not already set.
consumer_key = OAuth::Consumer.new(
)
access_token = OAuth::Token.new(
)
# Issue the request.
request.oauth! http, consumer_key, access_token
http.start
response = http.request request
# Parse and print the Tweet if the response code was 200
tweets = nil
if response.code == '200' then
tweets = JSON.parse(response.body)
print_timeline(tweets)
end
nil
The date is coming out as "Tue Jun 11 15:35:31 +0000 2013". What do I do to parse through the date and change it to a format such as "06.11.2013"?

Answer 1

Use Ruby's standard library Date:
require 'date'
d = DateTime.parse('Tue Jun 11 15:35:31 +0000 2013')
puts d.strftime('%m.%d.%y')
In your code, just update print_timeline method:
def print_timeline(tweets)
tweets.each do |tweet|
d = DateTime.new(tweet['created_at'])
puts "#{tweet['user']['name']} , #{tweet['text']} , #{d.strftime('%m.%d.%y')} , #{tweet['id']}"
end
end