Date and Time Helpers in Rails

Just for reference http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/DateHelper.html#M001695

This post was created about <%= time_ago_in_words @post.created_at %> ago

Custom Date Formats for Your Rails Application

If you use a consistent date format often in your Rails applciation, it is worth it to add the format to your application environment. You can do this by adding  it to the bottom of the config/environment.rb file.

Time::DATE_FORMATS[:my_custom_format] = "%A %B %d, %Y"

Now you can use it in your views like this

@post.created_at.to_s(:my_custom_format)

Which will output something like Monday May 5, 2009