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
.
: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.hours + 70.seconds, true, :accumulate_on => :minutes)
=> "121 minutes and 10 seconds"
:only
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
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"
: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.
:highest_measures
When you want variable precision from DOTIW
:
>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.hour + 1.minute + 1.second, true, :highest_measures => 2)
=> "1 hour and 1 minute"
: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"
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
.
distance_of_time_in_percent("04-12-2009".to_time, "29-01-2010".to_time, "04-12-2010".to_time, options)