Argument out of range Rails 4 and bootstrap3-datetimepicker-rails

Question

I'm using the bootstrap3-datetimepicker-rails gem to let users store the scheduled_date of a WorkOrder in my application (a 'DateTime' property), but I'm getting an argument out of range error when the user submits the form to create the WorkOrder, and the date is very different than what was selected whenever the user pops open the edit screen. The funny thing is that it used to work, but I don't know what code could have changed to break it.

I added the required dependencies & included the proper directives in my CSS/JS files:

gem 'momentjs-rails', '~> 2.5.0'
gem 'bootstrap3-datetimepicker-rails', '~> 3.0.0'

As far as I can tell, my code looks identical to the example on the documentation. Here's the snippet of my form:

  <div class="row">
    <div class="col-md-4">
      <div class="form-group">
        <%= f.label :scheduled_date %>
        <div class='input-group date'>
          <span class="input-group-addon"><span class="fa fa-calendar"></span></span>
          <%= f.text_field :scheduled_date,  class: 'form-control input-lg', id: "service_date_picker" %>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>


  <script type="text/javascript">
      $(function () {
        $('#service_date_picker').datetimepicker({
          icons: {
            time: "fa fa-clock-o",
            date: "fa fa-calendar",
            up: "fa fa-arrow-up",
            down: "fa fa-arrow-down"
          }
        });
      });
  </script>

EDIT (forgot to add controller code - super simple):

work_orders_controller.rb

def create
  @work_order = WorkOrder.new(work_order_params)

  ... [it errors on the line above]
end

And my parameter whitelist:

def work_order_params
  params.require(:work_order).permit(:caller_name, :brief_job_details, :contract_price, :quoted_by, :job_description, :scheduled_date, :time_materials_details, :sheduled_time, :contact_name, :payment_method, :notes, :customer_id, :job_site_id)
end

And an example of the parameters that give the argument out of range error when I save the form:

work_orders_attributes"=>{"0"=>{"caller_name"=>"Justin", "time_materials_details"=>"", "contract_price"=>"", "quoted_by"=>"", "payment_method"=>"", "job_description"=>"", "scheduled_date"=>"05/23/2014 1:28 PM", "notes"=>""}}

Same as my customers_controller.rb where I have a nested form for a WorkOrder inside of the new customer form (everything else on that form works perfectly):

def create
  @customer = Customer.new(customer_params)

  ... [errors above]
end

The date and time saves correctly if it is within 24 hours of now, but even when it saves correctly, the date displays completely weird and unformatted in the text field when I go to edit that WorkOrder. For instance:

When I select the date from the date picker: 05/06/2014 10:28 AM

When I edit the WorkOrder: 2014-06-05 10:28:00.000000

Any ideas? Any preference for whether I should make that field a Date, Time, or DateTime (currently)? Right now, we're working in Central time zone, but that won't always be the case.

Thanks in advance for pointing me in the right direction!

Answer 1

@Uri Agassi is right: it's the values that you're passing to create the WorkOrder that are the most relevant here.

Try putzing around with the custom date formatting options provided to you by bootstrap-datepicker. If you can get a format that looks good and is easy to parse on the backend, then you'll want to intercept that parameter before it goes to the model for validation.

Regardless of what you'll go with for date formatting on the client-side, you'll still want to parse it into a useable Date or DateTime object server-side in your controller. Check out DateTime#strptime. You can also call #strptime on Date.

Untested, but the idea is there:

def create
  order_params = work_order_params
  order_params[:scheduled_date] = Date.strptime(order_params[:scheduled_date],
                                                '%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %p')
  @work_order = WorkOrder.new(order_params)
end