gateguru / chronic_distance

A simple Ruby natural language parser for distances.

Chronic Distance¶ ↑

A simple Ruby natural language parser for distances. Given a parse-able string distance, it returns the distance in millimeters.

The reverse can also be accomplished with the output method. Given a distance in millimeters, it outputs a string like “4 kilometers” or “4km” depending on the desired format.

Installation¶ ↑

$ gem install chronic_distance

Usage¶ ↑

>> require 'chronic_distance'
=> true

Parsing examples¶ ↑

>> ChronicDistance.parse('5 kilometers')
=> 5000000

>> ChronicDistance.parse('4 miles')
=> 6437376

>> ChronicDistance.parse('four miles')
=> 6437376

>> ChronicDistance.parse('1000m')
=> 1000000

>> ChronicDistance.parse('1000 meters')
=> 1000000

>> ChronicDistance.parse('ten yards')
=> 9144.0

>> ChronicDistance.parse('500 feet')
=> 152400.0

Nil is returned if the string can’t be parsed:

>> ChronicDistance.parse('kilometers')
=> nil

Output examples¶ ↑

>> ChronicDistance.output(5000000)
=> 5000000 mm

>> ChronicDistance.output(5000000, :format => :short, :unit => 'kilometers')
=> 5km

>> ChronicDistance.output(5000000, :format => :long, :unit => 'kilometers')
=> 5 kilometers

>> ChronicDistance.output(5000000, :unit => 'meters')
=> 5000 m

>> ChronicDistance.output(5000000, :format => :long, :unit => 'miles')
=> 3.10685596118667 miles

Inspiration¶ ↑

ChronicDistance borrows heavily from:

• hpoydar’s ChronicDuration github.com/hpoydar/chronic_duration

• mojombo’s Chronic github.com/mojombo/chronic

TODO¶ ↑

• Benchmark, optimize

• Other locale support

Copyright © 2009 Olivier Lauzon. See MIT-LICENSE for details.