^(Tiny) Relative Date

Tiny function that provides relative, localised, human-readable dates.

Installation

npm install tiny-relative-date

Usage

The module returns a relativeDate function with English translations by default.

const relativeDate = require('tiny-relative-date')

The relativeDate function accepts date strings or Date objects.

relativeDate('2017-06-25 09:00') // '12 hours ago'
relativeDate(new Date()) // 'just now'

The value of "now" can also be passed as a second parameter.

const now = new Date('2017-06-25 08:00:00')
const date = new Date('2017-06-25 07:00:00')

relativeDate(date, now) // 'an hour ago'

Using a non-English locale

The tiny-relative-date module can be initialised with a locale. See the translations directory for a list of available locales.

const relativeDateFactory = require('tiny-relative-date/lib/factory')
const deTranslations = require('tiny-relative-date/translations/de')
const relativeDate = relativeDateFactory(deTranslations)

relativeDate(new Date()) // 'gerade eben'

Using a custom locale

You can also use a completely custom locale by passing a translations object instead of a locale string. Translations can be plain strings with a {{time}} placeholder, or they can be functions. See the Adding new locales section below for a list of translation keys.

const relativeDateFactory = require('tiny-relative-date/lib/factory')
const relativeDate = relativeDateFactory({
  hoursAgo: '{{time}}h ago',
  daysAgo: (days) => `${days * 24}h ago`
})

relativeDate('2017-06-25 07:00:00') // '2h ago'
relativeDate('2017-06-24 06:00:00') // '27h ago'

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Running this project locally requires Git and Node.js.

git clone git@github.com:wildlyinaccurate/tiny-relative-date.git
cd tiny-relative-date/
npm install

Once you are set up, you can make changes to files in the src/, spec/ and translations/ directories. Build any changes you make by running

npm run build

And run the tests with

npm run test

Adding new locales

If you would like to add a new locale, please create a JSON file in the translations directory and ensure it has the following keys:

Key	Default value ("en" locale)
justNow	just now
secondsAgo	{{time}} seconds ago
aMinuteAgo	a minute ago
minutesAgo	{{time}} minutes ago
anHourAgo	an hour ago
hoursAgo	{{time}} hours ago
aDayAgo	yesterday
daysAgo	{{time}} days ago
aWeekAgo	a week ago
weeksAgo	{{time}} weeks ago
aMonthAgo	a month ago
monthsAgo	{{time}} months ago
aYearAgo	a year ago
yearsAgo	{{time}} years ago
overAYearAgo	over a year ago
secondsFromNow	{{time}} seconds from now
aMinuteFromNow	a minute from now
minutesFromNow	{{time}} minutes from now
anHourFromNow	an hour from now
hoursFromNow	{{time}} hours from now
aDayFromNow	tomorrow
daysFromNow	{{time}} days from now
aWeekFromNow	a week from now
weeksFromNow	{{time}} weeks from now
aMonthFromNow	a month from now
monthsFromNow	{{time}} months from now
aYearFromNow	a year from now
yearsFromNow	{{time}} years from now
overAYearFromNow	over a year from now