How to know if today's date is in a date range?

Question

I have an event with start_time and end_time and want to check if the event is "in progress". That would be to check if today's date is in the range between the two dates.

How would you do this in a function?

Answer 1

In Ruby 1.9.2 === doesn't work, I get an error:

irb(main):019:0> (Time.now .. (Time.now+1)) === Time.now TypeError: can't iterate from Time     from (irb):19:in `each'     from (irb):19:in `include?'     from (irb):19:in `include?'     from (irb):19:in `==='     from (irb):19     from /opt/ruby192/bin/irb:12:in `<main>' 

Instead use #cover?:

irb(main):002:0> (Time.now..Time.now+4).cover?(Time.now) => true irb(main):003:0> (Time.now..Time.now+4).cover?(Time.now+10) => false 

Answer 2

Use ===

---

Actually, there is an operator that will do this. Make a Range and compare Time objects to it using the === operator.

start   = Time.now.to_i  range   = start..(start + 2) inside  = start + 1 outside = start + 3        # ok, now...  range === inside  # true range === outside # false 

---

Update post-comment-flood: This version works well everywhere. (In Rails, in Ruby 1, and in Ruby 2.) The earlier irb example also worked fine but the interactive example wasn't always reproduced correctly in some experiments. This one is easier to cut-and-paste.

It's all straightened out now.