Ruby: How to check if the string is correct?

Question

I am pulling the data from the feed for which I have no control, and I need to check if the line I am giving is the real time.

In most cases, I correctly send something like “2:35” or “15:41”, but in other cases it looks like “AM” or “PM” (and without digits) ... so I ultimately just need to ignore them.

So how can I check if the data is valid time?

Answer 1

You can use Time.parse () and check for an ArgumentError exception for invalid times.

An added benefit is that you also have time in an easy-to-use format, if valid!

Answer 2

You didn’t specify exactly what you think is a valid time (for example, whether to take extra seconds), so here you can assume:

data =~ /^([01]?[0-9]|2[0-3])\:[0-5][0-9]$/