bkd / dotiw

Better distance of time in words for Rails

dotiw

dotiw is a plugin for Rails that overrides the default distance_of_time_in_words and provides a more accurate output. Do you crave accuracy down to the second? So do I. That's why I made this plugin. Take this for a totally kickass example:

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.year + 2.months + 3.days + 4.hours + 5.minutes + 6.seconds, true)
=> "1 year, 2 months, 3 days, 4 hours, 5 minutes, and 6 seconds"

Also if one of the measurement is zero it will not output it:

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.year + 2.months + 4.hours + 5.minutes + 6.seconds, true)
=> "1 year, 2 months, 4 hours, 5 minutes, and 6 seconds"

Better than "about 1 year", am I right? Of course I am.

"But Ryan!", you say, "What happens if the time is only in seconds but because of the default the seconds aren't shown? Won't it be blank?" "No!" I triumphantly reply:

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.second, false)
=> "1 second"

The third argument for this method is whether or not to include seconds. By default this is false (because in Rails' distance_of_time_in_words it is), you can turn it on though by passing true as the third argument:

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.year + 1.second, true)
=> "1 year, and 1 second" 

Yes this could just be merged into the options hash but I'm leaving it here to ensure "backwards-compatibility", because that's just an insanely radical thing to do. \m/

The last argument is an optional options hash that can be used to manipulate behavior and (which uses to_sentence).

Don't like having to pass in Time.now all the time? Then use time_ago_in_words which also will rock your world:

>> time_ago_in_words(Time.now + 3 days + 1.second)
=> "3 days, and 1 second"

Oh, and did I mention it supports I18n? Oh yeah. Rock on!

Options

:locale

You can pass in a locale and it'll output it in whatever language you want (provided you have translations, otherwise it'll default to English):

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.minute, false, :locale => "es")
=> "1 minuto"

This will also be passed to to_sentence

:vague

Specify this if you want it to use the old distance_of_time_in_words. The value can be anything except nil or false.

:singularize

Specify if all values of the hash should be presented in their singular form. By default they will be pluralized whenever outside the -1..1 range. If you wish to have them signularized, just add the option :singularize => :always.

This option is useful for Russian and Icelandic folks (https://github.com/radar/dotiw/issues#issue/2).

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 2.hour + 2.minute, true, :singularize => :always)
=> "2 hour and 2 minute"

:accumulate_on

Specifies the maximum output unit which will accumulate all the surplus. Say you set it to seconds and your time difference is of 2 minutes then the output would be 120 seconds. Here's a code example:

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 2.hour + 70.second, true, :accumulate_on => :minutes)
=> "121 minutes minute and 10 seconds"

:only

Note that values passed into this option must be passed in as strings!

Only want a specific measurement of time? No problem!

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.hour + 1.minute, false, :only => "minutes")
=> "1 minute"

You only want some? No problem too!

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.hour + 1.day + 1.minute, false, :only => ["minutes", "hours"])
=> "1 hour and 1 minute"

:except

Note that values passed into this option must be passed in as strings!

Don't want a measurement of time? No problem!

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.hour + 1.minute, false, :except => "minutes")
=> "1 hour"

Culling a whole group of measurements of time:

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.hour + 1.day + 1.minute, false, :except => ["minutes", "hours"])
=> "1 day"

:words_connector

This is an option for to_sentence, defaults to ', '

Using something other than a comma:

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.hour + 1.minute + 1.second, true, { :words_connector => ' - ' })
=> "1 hour - 1 minute, and 1 second"

:two_words_connector

This is an option for to_sentence, defaults to ' and '

Using something other than 'and':

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.hour + 1.minute, true, { :two_words_connector => ' plus ' })
=> "1 hour plus 1 minute"

:last_word_connector

This is an option for to_sentence, defaults to ', and '

Using something other than ', and':

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.hour + 1.minute + 1.second, true, { :last_word_connector => ', finally ' })
=> "1 hour, 1 minute, finally 1 second"

:highest_measure_only

For times when Rails distance_of_time_in_words is not precise enough and DOTIW is too precise. For instance, if you only want to know the highest time part (measure) that elapsed between two dates.

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.hour + 1.minute + 1.second, true, { :highest_measure_only => true })
=> "1 hour"

Notice how minutes and seconds were removed from the output. Another example:

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.minute + 1.second, true, { :highest_measure_only => true })
=> "1 minute"

Minutes are the highest measure, so seconds were discarded from the output.

distance_of_time

If you have simply a number of seconds you can get the "stringified" version of this by using distance_of_time:

>> distance_of_time(300)
=> "5 minutes"

distance_of_time_in_words_hash

Don't like any format you're given? That's cool too! Here, have an indifferent hash version:

>> distance_of_time_in_words_hash(Time.now, Time.now + 1.year + 2.months + 3.days + 4.hours + 5.minutes + 6.seconds)
=> {"days"=>3, "seconds"=>6, "minutes"=>5, "years"=>1, "hours"=>4, "months"=>2}

Indifferent means that you can access all keys by their String or Symbol version.

distance_of_time_in_percent

If you want to calculate a distance of time in percent, use distance_of_time_in_percent. The first argument is the beginning time, the second argument the "current" time and the third argument is the end time. This method takes the same options as [number_with_precision][http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/NumberHelper.html#M001687].

distance_of_time_in_percent("04-12-2009".to_time, "29-01-2010".to_time, "04-12-2010".to_time, options)

Contributors

• [chendo][http://github.com/chendo] - for talking through it with me and drawing on the whiteboard
• [Derander][http://github.com/derander] - correct Spanish translations
• [DBA][http://github.com/dba] - Commits leading up to the 0.7 release.