time_select(object_name, method, options = {}, html_options = {}) public

Returns a set of select tags (one for hour, minute, and optionally second) pre-selected for accessing a specified time-based attribute (identified by method) on an object assigned to the template (identified by object). You can include the seconds with :include_seconds. You can get hours in the AM/PM format with :ampm option.

This method will also generate 3 input hidden tags, for the actual year, month, and day unless the option :ignore_date is set to true. If you set the :ignore_date to true, you must have a date_select on the same method within the form otherwise an exception will be raised.

If anything is passed in the html_options hash it will be applied to every select tag in the set.

# Creates a time select tag that, when POSTed, will be stored in the article variable in the sunrise attribute.
time_select("article", "sunrise")

# Creates a time select tag with a seconds field that, when POSTed, will be stored in the article variables in
# the sunrise attribute.
time_select("article", "start_time", include_seconds: true)

# You can set the <tt>:minute_step</tt> to 15 which will give you: 00, 15, 30, and 45.
time_select 'game', 'game_time', { minute_step: 15 }

# Creates a time select tag with a custom prompt. Use <tt>prompt: true</tt> for generic prompts.
time_select("article", "written_on", prompt: { hour: 'Choose hour', minute: 'Choose minute', second: 'Choose seconds' })
time_select("article", "written_on", prompt: { hour: true }) # generic prompt for hours
time_select("article", "written_on", prompt: true) # generic prompts for all

# You can set :ampm option to true which will show the hours as: 12 PM, 01 AM .. 11 PM.
time_select 'game', 'game_time', { ampm: true }

# You can set :ignore_date option to true which will remove the hidden inputs for day,
# month, and year that are set by default on this helper when you only want the time inputs
time_select 'game', 'game_time', { ignore_date: true }

The selects are prepared for multi-parameter assignment to an Active Record object.

Note: If the day is not included as an option but the month is, the day will be set to the 1st to ensure that all month choices are valid.

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October 24, 2008
1 thank

Styling question

How do we style the select boxes and “:” somehow within this method?

Follwup: it seems in Rails 2.1, FormBuilder#time_select didn’t pass html_options to this method. and it’s fixed i

July 30, 2008 - (v2.1.0)
1 thank

2.1 sets UTC time by default

Rails 2.1 sets hour select to UTC time value, not local server time by default. So if you’re not in UTC time zone don’t forget to specify timezone in your config/environment.rb: config.time_zone = 'Vilnius'

January 6, 2013
1 thank

Changing time/date separators

@hayafirst — it is possible to remove that “:” or change it to something else. Just pass `:time_separator` option. Inspect ActionView::Helpers::DateTimeSelector#separator method for more.

July 30, 2008
0 thanks

Set time zone in before filter

To set your time zone you could create a before_filter in your application.rb controller

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base

 before_filter :set_timezone

 def set_timezone
   Time.zone = 'GMT'
 end

end