Rails - format date_field

Question

how can I style the date format of a date_field?

I got the following form:

<%= form_for([@user, @vehicle]) do |f| %>
    <%= f.label :name, "Vehicle name" %>
    <%= f.text_field :name, class: 'form-control' %>
    <%= f.label :matriculation_date %>
    <%= f.date_field :matriculation_date, class: 'form-control' %>
    <%= f.submit "Add", class: "btn btn-primary" %>
<% end %>

this is rendering the following HTML for the date field:

<input class="form-control" type="date" name="vehicle[matriculation_date]" id="vehicle_matriculation_date">

The date field accept input in the following format: mm/dd/yyyy. I want it to accept format like dd/mm/yyyy.

I tried to edit it.yml file without any luck.

it:
  date:
      formats:
        default: ! '%d/%m/%Y'

  datetime:
      formats:
        default: ! '%d/%m/%Y %H:%M'

Any clue? Thank you

EDIT

None of the proposed solutions solve my problem, so I think my question was not very clear. What I want is just to style how the date_field prompt the user (see image for more details). At the moment the form show mm/dd/yyyy, and I want it to show dd/mm/yyyy.

Not sure it might be a useful information, but I'm using Bootstrap for styling.

Answer 1

You can do:

<%= f.date_field :matriculation_date, as: :date, value: f.object.try(:strftime,"%m/%d/%Y"), class: 'form-control' %> 

Answer 2

You can convert the date formate with strftime()

@date.strftime("%d/%m/%Y")

It will convert your date into dd/mm/yyyy formate as you wanted. Here I am showing you an example:

t = Time.now
=> 2016-04-28 16:09:42 -0700
>> t.strftime("%d/%m/%Y")
=> "28/04/2016"

for more strftime() formatting options you can check this http://apidock.com/ruby/DateTime/strftime

---

EDIT :

After reading your comment and screenshot i've got the solution as follow.

You can also use this gem: https://github.com/Nerian/bootstrap-datepicker-rails on your gemfile.rb

gem 'bootstrap-datepicker-rails'

then bundle install and restart rails server

then add this line to app/assets/stylesheets/application.css

*= require bootstrap-datepicker

and add this line to app/assets/javascripts/application.js

//= require bootstrap-datepicker

and to use this in your form:

<%= f.date_field :matriculation_date, :id => "datepicker" %>

and add this javascript on the same view of your form

<script>
$('#datepicker').datepicker({format: 'dd/mm/yyyy'});
</script>

Answer 3

You can try this

@yourdate.strftime("%m/%d/%Y")

this works!