Convert Time from one time zone to another in Rails

My created_at timestamps are stored in UTC:

>> Annotation.last.created_at
=> Sat, 29 Aug 2009 23:30:09 UTC +00:00

How do I convert one of them to 'Eastern Time (US & Canada)' (taking into account daylight savings)? Something like:

Annotation.last.created_at.in_eastern_time

Use the in_time_zone method of the DateTime class

Loading development environment (Rails 2.3.2)
>> now = DateTime.now.utc
=> Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:27:45 +0000
>> now.in_time_zone('Eastern Time (US & Canada)')
=> Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:27:45 EDT -04:00
>> quit

So for your particular example

Annotation.last.created_at.in_time_zone('Eastern Time (US & Canada)')

Although this is an old question, it's worth mentioning something. In a previous reply it's suggested to use a before_filter to set the timezone temporally.

You should never, ever do that because Time.zone stores the information in the thread, and it will probably leak to the next request handled by that thread.

Instead you should use an around_filter to make sure that the Time.zone is reset after the request is complete. Something like:

around_filter :set_time_zone

private

def set_time_zone
  old_time_zone = Time.zone
  Time.zone = current_user.time_zone if logged_in?
  yield
ensure
  Time.zone = old_time_zone
end

Read more about this here

If you add this to your /config/application.rb

config.time_zone = 'Eastern Time (US & Canada)'

Then you can cell

Annotation.last.created_at.in_time_zone

to get the time in the specified time zone.

If you configure your /config/application.rb

config.time_zone = 'Eastern Time (US & Canada)'

Time.now.in_time_zone

DateTime.now.in_time_zone

Set your timezone to Eastern Time.

You can set your default timezone in config/environment.rb

config.time_zone = "Eastern Time (US & Canada)"

Now all records you pull out will be in that time zone. If you need different time zones, say based on a user timezone you can change it with a before_filter in your controller.

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base

  before_filter :set_timezone

  def set_timezone
    Time.zone = current_user.time_zone
  end
end

Just make sure you are storing all your times in the database as UTC and everything will be sweet.

I used this method to parse a datetime string into a timezone, then convert it to another timezone

datetime = "2021-01-14 05:30"

datetime_in_ET = ActiveSupport::TimeZone['Eastern Time (US & Canada)'].parse(datetime)
#=> Thu, 14 Jan 2021 05:30:00 EST -05:00

datetime_in_ET.in_time_zone("Australia/Melbourne")
# => Thu, 14 Jan 2021 21:30:00 AEDT +11:00

For reference: here are the available timezone strings:

{ "International Date Line West" => "Etc/GMT+12", "Midway Island" => "Pacific/Midway", "American Samoa" => "Pacific/Pago_Pago", "Hawaii" => "Pacific/Honolulu", "Alaska" => "America/Juneau", "Pacific Time (US & Canada)" => "America/Los_Angeles", "Tijuana" => "America/Tijuana", "Mountain Time (US & Canada)" => "America/Denver", "Arizona" => "America/Phoenix", "Chihuahua" => "America/Chihuahua", "Mazatlan" => "America/Mazatlan", "Central Time (US & Canada)" => "America/Chicago", "Saskatchewan" => "America/Regina", "Guadalajara" => "America/Mexico_City", "Mexico City" => "America/Mexico_City", "Monterrey" => "America/Monterrey", "Central America" => "America/Guatemala", "Eastern Time (US & Canada)" => "America/New_York", "Indiana (East)" => "America/Indiana/Indianapolis", "Bogota" => "America/Bogota", "Lima" => "America/Lima", "Quito" => "America/Lima", "Atlantic Time (Canada)" => "America/Halifax", "Caracas" => "America/Caracas", "La Paz" => "America/La_Paz", "Santiago" => "America/Santiago", "Newfoundland" => "America/St_Johns", "Brasilia" => "America/Sao_Paulo", "Buenos Aires" => "America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires", "Montevideo" => "America/Montevideo", "Georgetown" => "America/Guyana", "Puerto Rico" => "America/Puerto_Rico", "Greenland" => "America/Godthab", "Mid-Atlantic" => "Atlantic/South_Georgia", "Azores" => "Atlantic/Azores", "Cape Verde Is." => "Atlantic/Cape_Verde", "Dublin" => "Europe/Dublin", "Edinburgh" => "Europe/London", "Lisbon" => "Europe/Lisbon", "London" => "Europe/London", "Casablanca" => "Africa/Casablanca", "Monrovia" => "Africa/Monrovia", "UTC" => "Etc/UTC", "Belgrade" => "Europe/Belgrade", "Bratislava" => "Europe/Bratislava", "Budapest" => "Europe/Budapest", "Ljubljana" => "Europe/Ljubljana", "Prague" => "Europe/Prague", "Sarajevo" => "Europe/Sarajevo", "Skopje" => "Europe/Skopje", "Warsaw" => "Europe/Warsaw", "Zagreb" => "Europe/Zagreb", "Brussels" => "Europe/Brussels", "Copenhagen" => "Europe/Copenhagen", "Madrid" => "Europe/Madrid", "Paris" => "Europe/Paris", "Amsterdam" => "Europe/Amsterdam", "Berlin" => "Europe/Berlin", "Bern" => "Europe/Zurich", "Zurich" => "Europe/Zurich", "Rome" => "Europe/Rome", "Stockholm" => "Europe/Stockholm", "Vienna" => "Europe/Vienna", "West Central Africa" => "Africa/Algiers", "Bucharest" => "Europe/Bucharest", "Cairo" => "Africa/Cairo", "Helsinki" => "Europe/Helsinki", "Kyiv" => "Europe/Kiev", "Riga" => "Europe/Riga", "Sofia" => "Europe/Sofia", "Tallinn" => "Europe/Tallinn", "Vilnius" => "Europe/Vilnius", "Athens" => "Europe/Athens", "Istanbul" => "Europe/Istanbul", "Minsk" => "Europe/Minsk", "Jerusalem" => "Asia/Jerusalem", "Harare" => "Africa/Harare", "Pretoria" => "Africa/Johannesburg", "Kaliningrad" => "Europe/Kaliningrad", "Moscow" => "Europe/Moscow", "St. Petersburg" => "Europe/Moscow", "Volgograd" => "Europe/Volgograd", "Samara" => "Europe/Samara", "Kuwait" => "Asia/Kuwait", "Riyadh" => "Asia/Riyadh", "Nairobi" => "Africa/Nairobi", "Baghdad" => "Asia/Baghdad", "Tehran" => "Asia/Tehran", "Abu Dhabi" => "Asia/Muscat", "Muscat" => "Asia/Muscat", "Baku" => "Asia/Baku", "Tbilisi" => "Asia/Tbilisi", "Yerevan" => "Asia/Yerevan", "Kabul" => "Asia/Kabul", "Ekaterinburg" => "Asia/Yekaterinburg", "Islamabad" => "Asia/Karachi", "Karachi" => "Asia/Karachi", "Tashkent" => "Asia/Tashkent", "Chennai" => "Asia/Kolkata", "Kolkata" => "Asia/Kolkata", "Mumbai" => "Asia/Kolkata", "New Delhi" => "Asia/Kolkata", "Kathmandu" => "Asia/Kathmandu", "Astana" => "Asia/Dhaka", "Dhaka" => "Asia/Dhaka", "Sri Jayawardenepura" => "Asia/Colombo", "Almaty" => "Asia/Almaty", "Novosibirsk" => "Asia/Novosibirsk", "Rangoon" => "Asia/Rangoon", "Bangkok" => "Asia/Bangkok", "Hanoi" => "Asia/Bangkok", "Jakarta" => "Asia/Jakarta", "Krasnoyarsk" => "Asia/Krasnoyarsk", "Beijing" => "Asia/Shanghai", "Chongqing" => "Asia/Chongqing", "Hong Kong" => "Asia/Hong_Kong", "Urumqi" => "Asia/Urumqi", "Kuala Lumpur" => "Asia/Kuala_Lumpur", "Singapore" => "Asia/Singapore", "Taipei" => "Asia/Taipei", "Perth" => "Australia/Perth", "Irkutsk" => "Asia/Irkutsk", "Ulaanbaatar" => "Asia/Ulaanbaatar", "Seoul" => "Asia/Seoul", "Osaka" => "Asia/Tokyo", "Sapporo" => "Asia/Tokyo", "Tokyo" => "Asia/Tokyo", "Yakutsk" => "Asia/Yakutsk", "Darwin" => "Australia/Darwin", "Adelaide" => "Australia/Adelaide", "Canberra" => "Australia/Melbourne", "Melbourne" => "Australia/Melbourne", "Sydney" => "Australia/Sydney", "Brisbane" => "Australia/Brisbane", "Hobart" => "Australia/Hobart", "Vladivostok" => "Asia/Vladivostok", "Guam" => "Pacific/Guam", "Port Moresby" => "Pacific/Port_Moresby", "Magadan" => "Asia/Magadan", "Srednekolymsk" => "Asia/Srednekolymsk", "Solomon Is." => "Pacific/Guadalcanal", "New Caledonia" => "Pacific/Noumea", "Fiji" => "Pacific/Fiji", "Kamchatka" => "Asia/Kamchatka", "Marshall Is." => "Pacific/Majuro", "Auckland" => "Pacific/Auckland", "Wellington" => "Pacific/Auckland", "Nuku'alofa" => "Pacific/Tongatapu", "Tokelau Is." => "Pacific/Fakaofo", "Chatham Is." => "Pacific/Chatham", "Samoa" => "Pacific/Apia" }