In case someone asks you to use some basic Time objects on a technical interview, you will now be prepared!
Instances of the Ruby Time class can be used to represent a date and time, like below.
t = Time.now
=> 2019-05-05 22:09:51 -0400
The date has three components: Day, month, and year.
The time also has three components: Hours, minutes, and seconds.
The day, month, year, and hour components have corresponding method that can be passed into the Time instance to retrieve only that component.
t = Time.now
=> 2019-05-05 22:09:51 -0400
t.day
=> 5
t.month
=> 5
t.year
=> 2019
t.hour
=> 22
t.min
=> 09
t.sec
=> 51
There is also a .zone method that returns the time zone as a string.
t.zone
=> "Eastern Daylight Time"
You can also check to see if a time object matches a specific day of the week.
t.sunday?
=> true
t.monday?
=> false
To convert a time object to a string, simply call .to_s like you would a float or integer.
t = Time.now
=> 2019-05-05 22:09:51 -0400
t.to_s
=> "2019-05-05 22:14:12 -0400"
And remember, strings in Ruby can be compared with comparison operators. This is a useful way to compare dates if you’re working with a program that parses dates into a string format.
"2019-05-05 22:14:12 -0400" > "2019-01-01"
=> true
"2019-05-05 22:14:12 -0400" < "2019-12-12"
=> false