I have many many string values that look like "March 31st 1999".
Is there an easy way to get this string format to Ruby date?
You can use the method Date.parse :
Date.parse
> Date.parse "Mar 31, 1999" => Wed, 31 Mar 1999
You can use Date.parse . For more complex date strings, you can use strptime :
strptime
require 'date' puts Date.strptime('Mar 31, 1999', '%b %d, %Y') #->1999-03-31
strptime is the opposite strftime
strftime
To parse a wide range of date strings, chronic