In Rails, Display Time Between Two Dates in English

In Rails, display time between two dates in English

The other answers may not give the type of output that you're looking for, because instead of giving a string of years, months, etc., the Rails helpers just show the largest unit. If you're looking for something more broken down, here's another option. Stick this method into a helper:

def time_diff_in_natural_language(from_time, to_time)
  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_seconds = ((to_time - from_time).abs).round
  components = []

  %w(year month week day).each do |interval|
    # For each interval type, if the amount of time remaining is greater than
    # one unit, calculate how many units fit into the remaining time.
    if distance_in_seconds >= 1.send(interval)
      delta = (distance_in_seconds / 1.send(interval)).floor
      distance_in_seconds -= delta.send(interval)
      components << pluralize(delta, interval)
      # if above line give pain. try below one  
      # components <<  interval.pluralize(delta)  
    end
  end

  components.join(", ")
end

And then in a view you can say something like:

<%= time_diff_in_natural_language(Time.now, 2.5.years.ago) %>
=> 2 years, 6 months, 2 days 

The given method only goes down to days, but can be easily extended to add in smaller units if desired.

In Rails, display time between two dates in English

The other answers may not give the type of output that you're looking for, because instead of giving a string of years, months, etc., the Rails helpers just show the largest unit. If you're looking for something more broken down, here's another option. Stick this method into a helper:

def time_diff_in_natural_language(from_time, to_time)
  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_seconds = ((to_time - from_time).abs).round
  components = []

  %w(year month week day).each do |interval|
    # For each interval type, if the amount of time remaining is greater than
    # one unit, calculate how many units fit into the remaining time.
    if distance_in_seconds >= 1.send(interval)
      delta = (distance_in_seconds / 1.send(interval)).floor
      distance_in_seconds -= delta.send(interval)
      components << pluralize(delta, interval)
      # if above line give pain. try below one  
      # components <<  interval.pluralize(delta)  
    end
  end

  components.join(", ")
end

And then in a view you can say something like:

<%= time_diff_in_natural_language(Time.now, 2.5.years.ago) %>
=> 2 years, 6 months, 2 days 

The given method only goes down to days, but can be easily extended to add in smaller units if desired.

Exact Difference between two dates in days and hours

There's a gem for that: time_diff !

https://rubygems.org/gems/time_diff

It will display the time difference and you can even format the output. Example:

'%y, %M, %w, %d and %h:%m:%s' will return: '1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks, 4 days and 12:05:52'

The syntax is also very straighforward:

> Time.diff(Time.parse('2010-03-06 12:30:00'), Time.parse('2011-03-07 12:30:30'), '%y, %d and %h:%m:%s')
=> {:year => 1, :month => 0, :week => 0, :day => 0, :hour => 18, :minute => 0, :second => 30, :diff => '1 year and 18:00:30'}

You should be able to get what you need out of this.

Happy coding !

Find number of months between two Dates in Ruby on Rails

(date2.year * 12 + date2.month) - (date1.year * 12 + date1.month)

more info at http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/72120

Compare two dates from two different sources

1. For simple comparison, use object.created_at.zone.eql? object2.created_at.zone
   To cast to the same timezone, you can use Time.parse(object.created_at).in_time_zone(object2.created_at.zone)
2. You can convert your date to UNIX time format, object.created_at.to_i - object2.created_at.to_i is the difference in seconds, if necessary, you can calculate in hours and days by dividing by 60 and then by 24. I suggest immediately using the calculation in modules , since we do not know in advance which object was created later.

Rails, Ruby, Calculate Days between Dates + auto form population

Your form is most likely going to post to save data in rows of your database that represent an instance of a model. So you can use a model method (or, since some would argue that models should only contain persistence logic, a model decorator) to achieve this. For now, it's easiest to keep it in the model.

Say your model name is Event.

Then you can have start_date and end_date fields on it. These will likely be datetime fields.

Then, you can have a method in your model called, say, days_spread:

def days_spread
  end_date.to_date - start_date.to_date
end

Calling to_date on those datetimes will make the result of that subtraction a number of days. You may also need to call to_i on that return value to get an integer.

Then you can just call days_spread.times do { |x| }

It's hard to give you a more specific answer without your data model, but that should get you started.

Iterating between two DateTimes, with a one hour step

Similar to my answer in "How do I return an array of days and hours from a range?", the trick is to use to_i to work with seconds since the epoch:

('2013-01-01'.to_datetime.to_i .. '2013-02-01'.to_datetime.to_i).step(1.hour) do |date|
  puts Time.at(date)
end

Note that Time.at() converts using your local time zone, so you may want to specify UTC by using Time.at(date).utc

How to know if today's date is in a date range?

Use ===

Actually, there is an operator that will do this. Make a Range and compare Time objects to it using the === operator.

start   = Time.now.to_i

range   = start..(start + 2)
inside  = start + 1
outside = start + 3        # ok, now...

range === inside  # true
range === outside # false