Iterate every month with date objects

Question

So I have two ruby Date objects, and I want to iterate them every month. For example if I have Date.new(2008, 12) and Date.new(2009, 3), it would yield me 2008-12, 2009-1, 2009-2, 2009-3 (as Date objects of course). I tried using range, but it yields every day. I saw step method for Date however it only allows me to pass number of days (and each month has different number of those). Anyone have any ideas?

Answer 1

I have added following method to Date class:

class Date
  def all_months_until to
    from = self
    from, to = to, from if from > to
    m = Date.new from.year, from.month
    result = []
    while m <= to
      result << m
      m >>= 1
    end

    result
  end
end

You use it like:

>> t = Date.today
=> #<Date: 2009-11-12 (4910295/2,0,2299161)>
>> t.all_months_until(t+100)   
=> [#<Date: 2009-11-01 (4910273/2,0,2299161)>, #<Date: 2009-12-01 (4910333/2,0,2299161)>, #<Date: 2010-01-01 (4910395/2,0,2299161)>, #<Date: 2010-02-01 (4910457/2,0,2299161)>]

Ok, so, more rubyish approach IMHO would be something along:

class Month<Date
  def succ
    self >> 1
  end
end

and

>> t = Month.today
=> #<Month: 2009-11-13 (4910297/2,0,2299161)>
>> (t..t+100).to_a
=> [#<Month: 2009-11-13 (4910297/2,0,2299161)>, #<Month: 2009-12-13 (4910357/2,0,2299161)>, #<Month: 2010-01-13 (4910419/2,0,2299161)>, #<Month: 2010-02-13 (4910481/2,0,2299161)>]

But you would need to be careful to use first days of month (or implement such logic in Month)...

Answer 2

I find that I need to do this sometimes when generating select lists of months. The key is the >> operator on Date, which advances the Date forward one month.

def months_between(start_month, end_month)
  months = []
  ptr = start_month
  while ptr <= end_month do
    months << ptr
    ptr = ptr >> 1
  end
  months
end

results = months_between(Date.new(2008,12), Date.new(2009,3))

Of course, you can format the results however you like in the loop.

months << "#{Date::MONTHNAMES[ptr.month]} #{ptr.year}"

Will return the month name and year ("March 2009"), instead of the Date object. Note that the Date objects returned will be set on the 1st of the month.