Subtracting two dates in ruby on rails

Question

I'm subtracting two dates in my model in this way:-

  def total_days
      self.to_date - self.from_date
  end

My date is in Mysql Date (YYYY-MM-DD)format.

When displaying my date in view it is giving me 5/1 days. Even though 5 is correct it is appending '/1' to the days. How can i remove this. Is there any better way of doing it?

Answer 1

try this, for example

require 'date'
$ now = Date.today
$ before = Date.today + 2.days
$ difference_in_days = (before - now).to_i

for your solution

def total_days
  difference_in_days = (self.to_date - self.from_date).to_i
end

Answer 2

You can also work in the view with:

<%= distance_of_time_in_words(contract['start_date'], contract['end_date'])%>