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".
The last argument is an optional options hash that can be used to manipulate behavior and (which uses to_sentence).
Oh, and did I mention it supports I18n? Oh yeah.
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
Specify this if you want it to use the old distance_of_time_in_words. The value can be anything except nil or false.
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"
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"
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"
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"
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"
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"
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"
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.
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"
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.
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)
- [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.