human_date

human_date allows you to display times and dates in a human format.

date = Date.current # 2012-08-28

human_date(date) # Today
human_date(date + 1.day) # Tomorrow
human_date(date - 1.day) # Yesterday
human_date(date - 2.days) # Aug 26
human_date(date - 1.year) # Aug 28, 2011

# it works with times, too

time = Time.now # 2012-08-28 17:20:54

human_time(time) # 5:20 pm
human_time(time - 1.day) # Yesterday
# ...

human_date provides you with 5 states for your Time/Date objects:

• today displays Today for Date and time for Time (5:20 pm)

• tomorrow displays: Tomorrow

• yesterday displays: Yesterday

• current_year displays the month and the day: Aug 26

• other_year displays the month, the day and the year: Aug 28, 2011

The default values can be overwritten in the locale file. See the I18n section for details.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'human_date'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install human_date

Usage

• human_date for dates

• human_time for times

• human_time_tag generates HTML5 <time> tag

Date examples

date = Date.current
# 2012-08-28

human_date(date)
# Today

human_time_tag(date)
# <time datetime="2012-08-28">Today</time>

human_time_tag(date, pubdate: true)
# <time datetime="2012-08-28" pubdate="pubdate">Today</time>

Time examples

time = Time.zone.now
# 2012-08-28 17:20:54

human_time(time)
# 5:20 pm

human_time_tag(time)
# <time datetime="2012-08-28T17:20:54">5:20 PM</time>

Namespaces

If you have several models and want each of them to have a different format (for example, for a Post you want to display 'Today' if it was posted today, but for a Comment you want to display something like '5:20 pm'), you can use namespaces.

# config/locales/en.yml
en:
  posts:
    time:
      formats:
        today: "Today"

  comments:
    time:
      formats:
        today: "%l:%M %p"

time = Time.now
# 2012-08-28 17:20:54

human_time(time, :posts)
# Today

human_time(time, :comments)
# 5:20 pm

human_time_tag(time, :posts)
# <time datetime="2012-08-28T17:20:54">Today</time>

human_time_tag(time, :comments)
# <time datetime="2012-08-28T17:20:54">5:20 pm</time>

human_time_tag(time, :comments, pubdate: true)
# <time datetime="2012-08-28T17:20:54" pubdate="pubdate">5:20 pm</time>

I18n

You can overwrite the default values in your locale file.

# config/locales/en.yml
en:
  date:
    formats:
      today: "Today"
      tomorrow: "Tomorrow"
      yesterday: "Yesterday"
      current_year: "%h %e"
      other_year: "%h %e, %Y"

  time:
    formats:
      today: "%l:%M %p"
      tomorrow: "Tomorrow"
      yesterday: "Yesterday"
      current_year: "%h %e"
      other_year: "%h %e, %Y"

Contributing

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Added some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request