>> a = Time.utc(2008, 2, 1)
=> Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 UTC 2008
>> a.beginning_of_month
=> Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 UTC 2008
>> a.end_of_month
=> Fri Feb 29 00:00:00 UTC 2008
>> a.strftime("%d-%m-%Y")
=> "01-02-2008"
>> a.to_date
=> #


There is a whole discussion regarding what’s standard in Ruby because it’s no default way to convert from a Time object to a Date object (although Rails has Time#to_date and Date#to_time methods). I personally prefer Time#utc or Time#local because it’s a bit more descriptive than Date#civil (although it relies on the underlying system date functions and might be limited in some ways). Why not Date#commercial?

i already blogged about enumerable http://alexbrie.net/1787/enumerable-iterators-why-i-love-ruby-part-2/, now i just wanted to emphasize inject’s cool properties in making your code smaller and cleaner