If you are like me, you want the all dates and times to display throughout your application using the same format. This can be accomplished through the following procedure.

Create a new Rails ‘Initializer’ file in your application’s ‘/config/initializers’ directory titled ‘date_format.rb’ and then paste into that file the following Ruby script. Simply uncomment the format you wish to use for each of the types Date, DateTime, and Time.

# Date
# —————————-
#Date::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%Y-%m-%d” # 2013-11-03
#Date::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%B %e, %Y” # November 3, 2013
#Date::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%e %b %Y” # 3 Nov 2013
#Date::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%Y%m%d” # 20131103
#Date::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%e %b” # 3 Nov

# DateTime
# —————————-
#DateTime::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%Y-%m-%d” # 2013-11-03 14:22:18
#DateTime::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%B %e, %Y” # November 3, 2013 14:22
#DateTime::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%e %b %Y” # Sun, 3 Nov 2013 14:22:18 -0700
#DateTime::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%Y%m%d” # 20131103142218
#DateTime::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%e %b” # 3 Nov 14:22

# Time
# —————————-
#Time::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S” # 2013-11-03 14:22:18
#Time::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%B %d, %Y %H:%M” # November 3, 2013 14:22
#Time::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z” # Sun, 3 Nov 2013 14:22:18 -0700
#Time::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%d %b %H:%M” # 3 Nov 14:22
#Time::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%Y%m%d%H%M%S” # 20131103142218
#Time::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = “%H:%M” # 14:22