Certain Time
methods accept arguments that specify timezones:
-
Time.at: keyword argument
in:
. -
Time.new: positional argument
zone
or keyword argumentin:
. -
Time.now: keyword argument
in:
. -
Time#getlocal: positional argument
zone
. -
Time#localtime: positional argument
zone
.
The value given with any of these must be one of the following (each detailed below):
-
Hours/minutes offset.
-
Single-letter offset.
-
Integer offset.
-
Timezone object.
-
Timezone name.
The zone value may be a string offset from UTC in the form '+HH:MM'
or '-HH:MM'
, where:
-
HH
is the 2-digit hour in the range0..23
. -
MM
is the 2-digit minute in the range0..59
.
Examples:
t = Time.utc(2000, 1, 1, 20, 15, 1) # => 2000-01-01 20:15:01 UTC Time.at(t, in: '-23:59') # => 1999-12-31 20:16:01 -2359 Time.at(t, in: '+23:59') # => 2000-01-02 20:14:01 +2359
The zone value may be a letter in the range 'A'..'I'
or 'K'..'Z'
; see List of military time zones:
t = Time.utc(2000, 1, 1, 20, 15, 1) # => 2000-01-01 20:15:01 UTC Time.at(t, in: 'A') # => 2000-01-01 21:15:01 +0100 Time.at(t, in: 'I') # => 2000-01-02 05:15:01 +0900 Time.at(t, in: 'K') # => 2000-01-02 06:15:01 +1000 Time.at(t, in: 'Y') # => 2000-01-01 08:15:01 -1200 Time.at(t, in: 'Z') # => 2000-01-01 20:15:01 UTC
The zone value may be an integer number of seconds in the range -86399..86399
:
t = Time.utc(2000, 1, 1, 20, 15, 1) # => 2000-01-01 20:15:01 UTC Time.at(t, in: -86399) # => 1999-12-31 20:15:02 -235959 Time.at(t, in: 86399) # => 2000-01-02 20:15:00 +235959
The zone value may be an object responding to certain timezone methods, an instance of Timezone and TZInfo for example.
The timezone methods are:
-
local_to_utc
:-
Called when Time.new is invoked with
tz
as the value of positional argumentzone
or keyword argumentin:
. -
Argument: a Time-like object.
-
Returns: a Time-like object in the UTC timezone.
-
-
utc_to_local
:-
Called when Time.at or Time.now is invoked with
tz
as the value for keyword argumentin:
, and when Time#getlocal or Time#localtime is called withtz
as the value for positional argumentzone
. -
Argument: a Time-like object.
-
Returns: a Time-like object in the local timezone.
-
A custom timezone class may have these instance methods, which will be called if defined:
-
abbr
:-
Called when Time#strftime is invoked with a format involving
%Z
. -
Argument: a Time-like object.
-
Returns: a string abbreviation for the timezone name.
-
-
dst?
:-
Called when Time.at or Time.now is invoked with
tz
as the value for keyword argumentin:
, and when Time#getlocal or Time#localtime is called withtz
as the value for positional argumentzone
. -
Argument: a Time-like object.
-
Returns: whether the time is daylight saving time.
-
-
name
:-
Called when
Marshal.dump(t)
is invoked -
Argument: none.
-
Returns: the string name of the timezone.
-
A Time
-like object is a container object capable of interfacing with timezone libraries for timezone conversion.
The argument to the timezone conversion methods above will have attributes similar to Time, except that timezone related attributes are meaningless.
The objects returned by local_to_utc
and utc_to_local
methods of the timezone object may be of the same class as their arguments, of arbitrary object classes, or of class Integer.
For a returned class other than Integer
, the class must have the following methods:
-
year
-
mon
-
mday
-
hour
-
min
-
sec
-
isdst
-
to_i
For a returned Integer
, its components, decomposed in UTC, are interpreted as times in the specified timezone.
If the class (the receiver of class methods, or the class of the receiver of instance methods) has find_timezone
singleton method, this method is called to achieve the corresponding timezone object from a timezone name.
For example, using Timezone:
class TimeWithTimezone < Time require 'timezone' def self.find_timezone(z) = Timezone[z] end TimeWithTimezone.now(in: "America/New_York") #=> 2023-12-25 00:00:00 -0500 TimeWithTimezone.new("2023-12-25 America/New_York") #=> 2023-12-25 00:00:00 -0500
Or, using TZInfo:
class TimeWithTZInfo < Time require 'tzinfo' def self.find_timezone(z) = TZInfo::Timezone.get(z) end TimeWithTZInfo.now(in: "America/New_York") #=> 2023-12-25 00:00:00 -0500 TimeWithTZInfo.new("2023-12-25 America/New_York") #=> 2023-12-25 00:00:00 -0500
You can define this method per subclasses, or on the toplevel Time class.