The dotiw library that adds distance_of_time_in_words to any Ruby project, or overrides the default implementation in Rails with more accurate output.

Do you crave accuracy down to the second? So do I. That's why I made this gem.

Add to your Gemfile.

gem 'dotiw'

Run bundle install.

require 'dotiw'

include DOTIW::Methods

require 'dotiw'

include ActionView::Helpers::DateHelper
include ActionView::Helpers::TextHelper
include ActionView::Helpers::NumberHelper

Take this for a totally kick-ass example:

>> distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + 1.year + 2.months + 3.weeks + 4.days + 5.hours + 6.minutes + 7.seconds, true)
=> "1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks, 4 days, 5 hours, 6 minutes, and 7 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 + 5.hours + 6.minutes + 7.seconds, true)
=> "1 year, 2 months, 4 days, 6 minutes, and 7 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!

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 your app's default locale (the config.i18n.default_locale you have set in /config/application.rb):

>> 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.

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.

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

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"

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"

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.

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"

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"

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.weeks + 4.days + 5.hours + 6.minutes + 7.seconds)
=> { days: 4, weeks: 3, seconds: 7, minutes: 6, years: 1, hours: 5, months: 2 }

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

This method is only available with Rails ActionView.

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.

>> distance_of_time_in_percent("04-12-2009".to_time, "29-01-2010".to_time, "04-12-2010".to_time)
=> '15%'

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, precision: 1)
=> '15.3%'

• chendo - for talking through it with me and drawing on the whiteboard
• Derander - correct Spanish translations
• DBA - commits leading up to the 0.7 release
• Sija - rails 4 support, v2.0 release
• dblock - Ruby w/o Rails support