Question

given a timestamp, I could like to have a method that returns the correct unit (secs, hours, minutes) and the correct metric for that unit.

Examples, for a timestamp:

1 sec ago - Unit: SEC, Metric: 1
20 secs ago - Unit: SECS, Metric: 20
1 hour ago - Unit: HOUR, Metric: 1
3 hour ago - Unit: HOURS, Metric: 3
25 hours ago - Unit: DAY, Metric: 1
50 hours ago - Unit: DAYS, Metric: 2

For this method I only need to go support, sec, hours and days. Not months. Ideas?

Answer 1

Most of the logic is already as a helper in Rails: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/DateHelper.html#method-i-distance_of_time_in_words

Something like this maybe:

def words_and_units(from_time, to_time = 0)

from_time = from_time.to_time if from_time.respond_to?(:to_time)
to_time = to_time.to_time if to_time.respond_to?(:to_time)
distance_in_minutes = (((to_time – from_time).abs)/60).round
distance_in_seconds = ((to_time – from_time).abs).round

case distance_in_minutes
  when 0..1

    case distance_in_seconds
      when 0..59   then {:metric => distance_in_seconds, :unit => 'SEC'}
      else             {:metric => 1, :unit => 'MIN'}
    end

  when 2..44           then {:metric => distance_in_minutes, :unit => 'MIN'}
  when 45..89          then {:metric => 1, :unit => 'HOUR'}
  when 90..1439        then {:metric => (distance_in_minutes.to_f / 60.0).round, :unit => 'HOUR'}
  when 1440..2529      then {:metric => 1, :unit => 'DAY'}
  when 2530..43199     then {:metric => (distance_in_minutes.to_f / 1440.0).round, :unit => 'DAY'}
  else
    raise WayToLongError
end

end