Converts a german date string to a Time object The format of the german date is '%A, %d. %B %Y, %H:%M Uhr' e.g.: 'Dienstag, 29. Januar 2013, 19:27 Uhr'

intl_time.rb

require 'date'

# Converts a german date string to a Time object
# The format of the german date is '%A, %d. %B %Y, %H:%M Uhr'
# e.g.: 'Dienstag, 29. Januar 2013, 19:27 Uhr'
#
# @params [String] german date
# @return [Time]
def intl_time(de_date)
  en_days = ["Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday", "Sunday"] 
  de_days = ["Montag", "Dienstag", "Mittwoch", "Donnerstag", "Freitag", "Samstag", "Sonntag"] 
  en_months = ["January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July", "August", "September", "October", "November", "December"]
  de_months = ["Januar", "Februar", "März", "April", "Mai", "Juni", "Juli", "August", "September", "Oktober", "November", "Dezember"]
  i18n_months = Hash[de_months.zip en_months]
  i18n_days = Hash[de_days.zip en_days]

  en_date = de_date
  [i18n_months, i18n_days].each do |i18n|
    i18n.each do |de, en|
      en_date.gsub!(/#{de}/, en)
    end
  end

  DateTime.strptime(en_date, '%A, %d. %B %Y, %H:%M Uhr').to_time.utc
end

de_date = 'Dienstag, 29. Januar 2013, 19:27 Uhr'
time = intl_time(de_date)
puts time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')