Issue #10040 has been updated by Nobuyoshi Nakada. Description updated I don't think there is possibilities to introduce `%d` and `%i`, especially using variables. But the latter would be different story, you may want to file another ticket for it. And yet another idea came to my mind: ```ruby 20140715T125845 #=> Time.new(2014, 7, 15, 12, 58, 45) 20140715T125845Z #=> Time.new(2014, 7, 15, 12, 58, 45, "+00:00") 990715T125845 #=> Time.new(99, 7, 15, 12, 58, 45); 1st century, not 19th century 20140715T125845.001.subsec #=> 1/100 ``` ---------------------------------------- Feature #10040: `%d` and `%t` shorthands for `Date.new(*args)` and `Time.new(*args)` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/10040#change-47800 * Author: Nathan Broadbent * Status: Open * Priority: Normal * Assignee: * Category: * Target version: ---------------------------------------- I'm working on a Ruby application where we have to deal with a lot of dates and times, especially in our test suite. We currently have a couple thousand cases of `Date.new(...)`, and I'm finding the syntax to be a little unwieldy. What do you think about the following shorthand suggestions? ```ruby %d(2014, 7, 15) # Equivalent to: Date.new(2014, 7, 15) %t(2014, 7, 15, 12, 58, 45) # Equivalent to: Time.new(2014, 7, 15, 12, 58, 45) ``` I added commas because I think the syntax should also support variables: ```ruby year = 2014 month = 7 %d(year, month, 15) # Equivalent to: Date.new(year, month, 15) ``` I understand that this will operate a bit differently to `%w` and `%i`, but I think that supporting variable evaluation would be a lot more useful. An alternative proposal would be to add `[]` methods to `Date` and `Time`, so that we could call: ```ruby Date[2014, 7, 15] Time[2014, 7, 15, 12, 58, 43] ``` This would be still be a little shorter and nicer to use. Please let me know if you would like me to open a feature ticket for `Date.[]` and `Time.[]` methods, instead. Please let me know your thoughts. Would you find a shorter date/time syntax useful? -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/