Fmt Alias
Simply create virtual fields to humanize real field values.
Installation
Add the following line to your Gemfile:
gem 'fmt_alias'
Example
Let the News model have created_at column:
class News < ActiveRecord::Base
date_fmt_alias(:d, "%Y%m%d")
date_fmt_alias(:dt, "%Y%m%d %H:%M")
end
news = News.new
news.d_fmt = "20090101"
news.d == Date.new(2009,1,1) # true
news.d_fmt # 20090101