Rails date format in form field

I'd like my dates in the mm/dd/year format in text fields. However, they currently displays as 2010-03-26.

Is there a global setting I can set to change this?

I tried the following, which seems to update the .to_s method, but form fields stay the same.

ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Date::Conversions::DATE_FORMATS.merge!(:default => '%m/%d/%Y')

Thanks

The `date_select` form helper provides a "bare bones" date selector.

I know this is an awfully old question, but you could use `date_field` instead of `text_field`. Perhaps that wasn't an option when you asked this question originally.

It displays the date in `mm/dd/yyyy`, which is your intent.

`<%= date_field :column_name %>`

You have to register the `default` format in an initializer.

Add this line to the `config/initializers/date_time_formats.rb`.

Date::DATE_FORMATS[:default] = '%m/%d/%Y'

# if you want to change the format of Time display then add the line below
Time::DATE_FORMATS[:default]= '%m/%d/%Y %H:%M:%S'

# if you want to change the DB date format.
Time::DATE_FORMATS[:db]= '%m/%d/%Y %H:%M:%S'

Now in the `script\console` lets test the format.

>> Date.today.to_s
=> "03/14/2010"

>> Time.now.to_s
=> "03/14/2010 13:20:55"

I don't know if there is a global setting for that anywhere, I just do it in the ERB.

<%= text_field_tag("air_date_date", air_date.blank? ? "" : air_date.strftime("%m/%d/%Y"), :class => "date-input text") %>

Alternatively, you can factor this out into a helper function to make it DRY.