Using DateTime method in ruby - ruby

Question

I'm developing an application using Visual Ruby. In that I'm fetching a date from a dropdown like below:
check_to_in_1 = #builder.get_object("cellrenderertext7")
then I split this date using the split method:
date_split = check_to_in_1.text.to_s.split("/")
I do this split because I want to convert the date from String to DateTime format, after splitting i print the values like below:
puts "#{date_split[2]}" # => 05
puts "#{date_split[1]}" # => 10
puts "#{date_split[0]}" # => 2013
Now I passed this value to the DateTime.new method to convert it to DateTime:
check_to_in_time_converted = DateTime.new(date_split[0],
date_split[1], date_split[2])
Now here I got this error:
C:/Users/abhiram/visualruby/examples/fedena/bin/SendAbsentees.rb:213:in `new': undefined method `div' for "05":String
from C:/Users/abhiram/visualruby/examples/fedena/bin/SendAbsentees.rb:213:in `button1_clicked'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/gtk2-1.2.1-x86-mingw32/lib/gtk2/base.rb:95:in `call'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/gtk2-1.2.1-x86-mingw32/lib/gtk2/base.rb:95:in `block in __connect_signals__'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/vrlib-0.0.33/lib/GladeGUI.rb:331:in `call'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/vrlib-0.0.33/lib/GladeGUI.rb:331:in `main'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/vrlib-0.0.33/lib/GladeGUI.rb:331:in `show_window'
from C:/Users/abhiram/visualruby/examples/fedena/bin/SendAbsentees.rb:99:in `show'
from C:/Users/abhiram/visualruby/examples/fedena/bin/Control.rb:36:in `button2_clicked'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/gtk2-1.2.1-x86-mingw32/lib/gtk2/base.rb:95:in `call'
I don't know what to do from here, could anyone help me to come out of this?

Answer 1

As you can read in the calls stack trace, DateTime.new is sending the method div to the string "05" that is not defined:
[...]/bin/SendAbsentees.rb:213:in `new': undefined method `div' for "05":String
That is because DateTime.new expects integers as arguments. You have to convert to integers the elements of date_split before passing them to DateTime.new:
DateTime.new(*date_split.map(&:to_i))
Even better you can do it without splitting the string, using DateTime.strptime instead of DateTime.new, like this:
DateTime.strptime(check_to_in_1.text.to_s, '%Y/%m/%d')
# => #<DateTime: 2013-05-10T00:00:00+00:00 ((2456423j,0s,0n),+0s,2299161j)>
I assumed your dates are in the format YEAR/MONTH/DAY, if instead they are in the format YEAR/DAY/MONTH you just have to swap %m and %d in the second argument to strptime.