[PATCH] distance_of_time_in_words inaccurate for 'about 1 year ago'

I agree with this feature request in spirit as small and worthwhile, but it certainly requires discussion.

This patch enhances distance_of_time_in_words to prefix the year string with either "about" or "over" depending upon how many months have elapsed in that year. The logic here is that if the half year mark has been passed, the time string should be "over x years" while in the case where that mark has not been passed the "about x years" syntax should be used.

Examples:

distance_of_time_in_words(from_time, from_time + 1.year + 3.days)   # => about 1 year
distance_of_time_in_words(from_time, from_time + 3.years + 6.months) # => over 3 years
distance_of_time_in_words(from_time, from_time + 4.years + 9.days + 30.minutes + 5.seconds) # => about 4 years
distance_of_time_in_words(from_time, from_time + 10.years + 2.days) # => about 10 years

I'd be in favor of introducing the "almost" identifier as well. For instance, I'd think that distance_of_time_in_words(from_time, from_time + 3.years + 10.months) should return "almost 4 years" or "less than 4 years."

That's a +1 from me, I like it and it works as expected on 3.2.

... that means: verified.

+1 from me too. 1.year + 11.months is certainly not "about 1 year ago". It makes sense to 'about' and 'over' prefixes.

Patch applies on 2-3-stable and works as expected.

John Trupiano,

I think you should create another ticket for the introduction of the "almost" identifier. I think that's more accurate than "over" given a certain threshold (say after 10 months).

Dan, I was thinking at 9 months. In the general case, I was thinking that once it's past 3/4 the distance between the 2 whole values that we should switch to "almost the greater value."

Anyone else have thoughts? I'll start whipping up the patch.

Looking at this other example:

  distance_of_time_in_words(from_time, from_time + 50.minutes)        # => about 1 hour

I'd think we'd just keep with 'about' instead of 'almost', e.g.

  distance_of_time_in_words(from_time, from_time + 3.years + 9.months)        # => about 4 years

+1 verified

fyi, I created a separate ticket that builds on this patch as Dan Pickett suggested: https://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994-ruby-on-rails/tickets...

Bug Mash +1

I think this is a valuable patch, but I also think that the wording of "over 3 years" isn't quite clear. To me, over 3 years seems to imply that the date could be 4, 5 or 6 years.

Logically, to me, I would think it would work like this:

1 year 0-6 months should be "about 1 year"
1 year 7-12 mo should be "almost 2 years"

(from [8ef1cd9733cd12fc4e5ea25c149956a33fdffa70]) Enhancing distance_of_time_in_words to prefix year output with over and about depending upon how many months have elapsed

Signed-off-by: Michael Koziarski michael@koziarski.com
[#3106 [PATCH] distance_of_time_in_words inaccurate for 'about 1 year ago' state:committed] http://github.com/rails/rails/commit/8ef1cd9733cd12fc4e5ea25c149956...