NaturalTime

NaturalTime outputs a duration in natural language.

Usage

Sentence

The to_sentence method will output the duration in time in natural language and formatted like a sentence.

NaturalTime.new(65).to_sentence         #> "1 minute and 5 seconds"

NaturalTime.new(120).to_sentence        #> "2 minutes"

NaturalTime.new(10000).to_sentence      #> "2 hours, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds"

String

The to_s command will separate the units with commas but with no "and":

NaturalTime.new(65).to_s                #> "1 minute, 5 seconds"

NaturalTime.new(10000).to_s             #> "2 hours, 46 minutes, 40 seconds"

Array

NaturalTime instances can also be output to an array with to_a:

NaturalTime.new(65).to_a                #> ["1 minutes", "5 seconds"]

NaturalTime.new(120).to_a               #> ["2 minutes"]

Precision

NaturalTime can return the amount of time to a specific precision. If all you want is the greatest unit:

NaturalTime.new(65, :precision#> 1).to_sentence    #=> "1 minute"

NaturalTime.new(10000, :precision#> 1).to_sentence #=> "2 hours"

NaturalTime.new(10000, :precision#> 2).to_sentence #=> "2 hours and 46 minutes"

Distance

If you want to use NaturalTime to show an elapsed time and you don't care if it's in the past or the future, use the natural_time or to_sentence methods, or the to_a method if you need the units in an array.

If you're measuring distances that may be in the past or the future, the distance method will return a sentence indicating how long ago or in the future is your duration.

NaturalTime.new(65).distance                      #> "1 minute and 5 seconds from now"

NaturalTime.new(-65).distance                     #> "1 minute and 5 seconds ago"

It works with :precision too:

NaturalTime.new(10000, :precision#> 1).distance #=> "2 hours from now"

NaturalTime.new(-10000, :precision#> 2).distance#=> "2 hours and 46 minutes ago"

Note on Patches/Pull Requests

Fork the project.
Make your feature addition or bug fix.
Add tests for it. This is important so I don't break it in a future version unintentionally.
Commit, do not mess with rakefile, version, or history. (if you want to have your own version, that is fine but bump version in a commit by itself I can ignore when I pull)
Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.