TimeAgoInWords

Warning

This is just a proof-of-concept gem. Please review the following production-ready suggestions i have for you:

Rails apps

You can use classic Rails time ago in words

time_ago_in_words(Time.now - 60*60*2) + ' ago'
#=> "about 2 hours ago"

# Note that all these returns the same
distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, 15.seconds.from_now, include_seconds: true)
distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, 15.seconds.ago, include_seconds: true)
time_ago_in_words(15.seconds.from_now, include_seconds: true)
#=> "less than 20 seconds"

For localization or changing the words to be used, look at this file

Non-Rails apps

Same as before but you will need some explicit requires:

require 'action_view'
require 'action_view/helpers'
include ActionView::Helpers::DateHelper
time_ago_in_words(Time.now - 60*60*2) + ' ago'
#=> "about 2 hours ago"

# If you need to take advantage of Numeric ActiveSupport extensions:
require 'active_support/core_ext/numeric/time'
time_ago_in_words(Time.now - 2.hours) + ' ago'
#=> "about 2 hours ago"
# note that (Time.now - 2.hours) == (2.hours.ago)

Web apps, client side:

If you are programming for the web and don't want to mess your caching strategies then client-side update libraries came to your rescue:

Name	Pure Javascript + Rails integration	jQuery library	jQuery + Rails integration
37signals Local Time	local_time	smart-time-ago	timeago-rails
Smart Time Ago		smart-time-ago	timeago-rails
Timeago		jquery-timeago	rails-timeago

dotiw

If you are looking for results that looks like this

    "1 year, 2 months, 4 hours, 5 minutes, and 6 seconds"

There is also time-lord if you want to look around

require 'time-lord'
1.hour.ago.to_i                     #=> -3600
200.minutes.ago.to_words            #=> "3 hours ago"
(200.years + 400.days).ago.to_words #=> "201 years ago"
1.hour.ago.to_range                 #=> 1379701707..1379705307

Related: Natural Language Date Parser

If you are working in the opposite direction chronic natural language date parsing to the rescue.

require 'chronic' #gem install chronic
Chronic.parse("1 year from now").year #=> 2014

The Javascript version of chronic is date and can be used within your browser (client-side) or nodejs (server-side).

Description

Humanize elapsed time from some Time instance to Time.now, e.g. '2 hours and 1 minute ago'

This gem provides slightly different approach to the others but still needs some work to be production-ready, check TODO section.

Installation

$ gem install time_ago_in_words or add to your Gemfile this line: gem 'time_ago_in_words' then run bundle install

Usage

Just require 'time_ago_in_words' and then call Time#ago_in_words method:

require 'time_ago_in_words'

# Comparing from now:
(Time.now - 10).ago_in_words #=> "10 seconds ago"
(Time.now - 1).ago_in_words  #=> "1 second ago"
(Time.now - 60).ago_in_words #=> "1 minute ago"
(Time.now - 63).ago_in_words #=> "1 minute and 3 seconds ago"

# This is my current time so you can compare
Time.now #=> 2013-03-06 02:19:23 -0300

Time.local(1981,03,03,20,30,40).ago_in_words #=> "690 days and 5 hours ago"
Time.local(2013,03,03,20,30,40).ago_in_words #=> "2 days and 5 hours ago"
Time.local(2013,03,04,20,30,40).ago_in_words #=> "1 day and 5 hours ago"
Time.local(2013,03,05,20,30,40).ago_in_words #=> "5 hours and 48 minutes ago"
Time.local(2013,03,05,21,13,40).ago_in_words #=> "5 hours and 5 minutes ago"
Time.local(2013,03,06,00,30,40).ago_in_words #=> "1 hour and 48 minutes ago"
Time.local(2013,03,06,01,11,40).ago_in_words #=> "1 hour and 7 minutes ago"
Time.local(2013,03,06,01,27,40).ago_in_words #=> "51 minutes and 43 seconds ago"
Time.local(2013,03,06,02,19,20).ago_in_words #=> "3 seconds ago"

Contributing

1. Fork it.
2. Make your feature addition or bug fix and create your feature branch.
3. Update the Change Log.
4. Add specs/tests for it. This is important so I don't break it in a future version unintentionally.
5. Commit, create a new Pull Request.
6. Check that your pull request passes the build.

TODO

• Add DateTime support. Currently only available for Time objects.
• Add "N months ago"
• Add "N years ago"
• Add "N decades ago"
• Add "N centuries ago"
• Add more rspec Examples
• Implement Time mocking for testing, instead of abusing Time.now on spec
• Extract time_ago_in_words and implement that alternative precision syntax, e.g. "less than a minute ago"

License

Released under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for further details.

Links

RubyGems | Documentation | Source | Bugtracker | Build Status | Dependency Status | Code Climate