DurationInWords

duration_in_words provides a view helper to convert ActiveSupport::Duration objects into concise string like 1h 20m and 30s, with locale support.

Why?

Currently, there is no direct way to format ActiveSupport::Duration objects in Rails. You'd have to resort to using the #inspect, which provides limited configuration options. Also, the locale support in the #inspect was removed around Rails 5.1.

You could do something like the following to format an ActiveSupport::Duration object by hand in a view helper:

def duration_as_sentence(duration)
  parts = duration.parts
  units = [:days, :hours, :minutes]
  map   = {
    :days     => { :one => :d },
    :hours    => { :one => :h, :other => :hrs },
    :minutes  => { :one => :m, :other => :mins }
  }

  parts.
    sort_by { |unit, _| units.index(unit) }.
    map     { |unit, val| "#{val} #{val == 1 ? map[unit][:one].to_s : map[unit][:other].to_s}" }.
    to_sentence
end

This gem does something similar along with providing a flexible way of defining formats in locale files and giving you an option to switch between :compact, and :full formats.

Installation

Add to your Gemfile:

gem "duration_in_words"

Install the gem by running bundle install.

Usage

include ActionView::Helpers::DurationHelper

>> duration = 2.hours
>> duration_in_words(duration)
=> "2h"
>> duration = 1.day + 2.hours + 30.minutes
>> duration_in_words(duration)
=> "1d 2h and 30m"

Using `:format` option:

There are two formats available, :compact, and :full. :compact being the default.

>> duration = 1.day + 2.hours + 30.minutes
>> duration_in_words(duration, format: :full)
=> "1 day 2 hours and 30 minutes"

Using `:locale` option:

Given this locale dictionary:

de:
  duration:
    in_words:
      format:
        compact:
          years:
            one: '%{count}J'
            other: '%{count}J'
          months:
            one: '%{count}M'
            other: '%{count}M'
          days:
            one: '%{count}T'
            other: '%{count}T'
          hours:
            one: '%{count}Std.'
            other: '%{count}Std.'
          minutes:
            one: '%{count}Min'
            other: '%{count}Min'
          seconds:
            one: '%{count}s'
            other: '%{count}s'
          support:
            words_connector: ' '
            two_words_connector: ' und '
            last_word_connector: ' und '
        full:
          years:
            one: '%{count} Jahr'
            other: '%{count} Jahre'
          months:
            one: '%{count} Monat'
            other: '%{count} Monate'
          days:
            one: '%{count} Tag'
            other: '%{count} Tage'
          hours:
            one: '%{count} Stunde'
            other: '%{count} Stunden'
          minutes:
            one: '%{count} Minute'
            other: '%{count} Minuten'
          seconds:
            one: '%{count} Sekunde'
            other: '%{count} Sekunden'
          support:
            words_connector: ', '
            two_words_connector: ' und '
            last_word_connector: ', und '

>> duration = 1.day + 2.hours + 30.minutes
>> duration_in_words(duration, locale: :de)
=> "1T 2Std. und 30s"
>> duration_in_words(duration, format: :full, locale: :de)
>> "1 Tag, 2 Std., und 30 Sekunden"

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and the created tag, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/aslam/duration_in_words.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

aslam/duration_in_words