We can use the gsub method on the string. gsub can be called with a regex
and a block, with each match being yielded to the block where you can run
arbitrary Ruby code on the match text to transform as needed.
require "date"
sample = <<-SAMPLE
The first battle was on 10/8/14,
followed by additional skirmishes
on 11/9/14 and 11/12/14.
SAMPLE
date_pattern = %r{\d+/\d+/\d+}
sample.gsub(date_pattern) do |date|
Date.
strptime(date, "%m/%d/%y").
strftime("%A %b %-d")
end
The block first parses the date string, explicitly specifying the date
format using strptime, then uses strftime to output the date in the
preferred format.
This produces:
The first battle was on Wednesday Oct 8,
followed by additional skirmishes
on Sunday Nov 9 and Wednesday Nov 12.
Check out the Weekly Iteration episode on Regex, specifically the [section on
using gsub with regex and a block][] for a more detailed summary.
Note: If you want to get really fancy, you can use the ActiveSupport
date.day.ordinalize method to get dates like 2nd and 4th. Check out our
[Weekly Iteration episode on ActiveSupport][] for more on ActiveSupport.
[Weekly Iteration episode on ActiveSupport]: https://upcase.com/videos/active-support
[section on using gsub with regex and a block]: https://upcase.com/videos/regular-expressions#gsub-with-a-block