Provided by: libdatetime-format-human-duration-perl_0.64-1_all 
NAME
DateTime::Format::Human::Duration - Get a locale specific string describing the span of a
given duration
SYNOPSIS
use DateTime;
use DateTime::Format::Human::Duration
my $span = DateTime::Format::Human::Duration->new();
my $dur = $dta - $dtb;
print $span->format_duration($dur); # 1 year, 2 months, 3 minutes, and 1 second
print $span->format_duration_between($dta, $dtb); # 1 year, 2 months, 3 minutes, and 1 second
DESCRIPTION
Get a localized string representing the duration.
For example:
1 second
2 minutes and 3 seconds
3 weeks, 1 day, and 5 seconds
4 years, 1 month, 2 days, 6 minutes, 1 second, and 345000028 nanoseconds
INTERFACE
new()
Create span object, no args
format_duration()
First argument is a DateTime::Duration object
After that you can optionally pass some "standard args" as a hash as described below
format_duration_between()
First two args are DateTime objects
After that you can optionally pass some "standard args" as a hash as described below
standard args
1. 'locale'
locale of the $dt object will be used if you do not specify this
Valid values are a string of the locale (E.g 'fr'), a DateTime object, or a DateTime
object's 'locale' key.
2. Since we're working with 2 DateTime objects of known points we can have past and future
tenses.
• past
String to use if duration is past tense. Can have a sprintf '%s' or else is
prepended with a trailing space.
• future
String to use if duration is future tense. Can have a sprintf '%s' or else is
prepended with a trailing space.
• no_time
Override the 'no_time' in the locale hash.
If duration is baseless (IE ambiguous) then 'past' and 'future' is used based on if
$dur->in_units has negatives or not.
Also by nature it's not split into type groups:
An example is
DateTime::Duration->new('seconds'=> 62)
Will result in '62 seconds' not '1 minute and 2 seconds'
For more sane results always be specific by using 2 datetime object to get a duration
object
print $dt->format_duration_between(
$dta,
$dtb,
'past' => 'Your account expired %s ago.',
'future' => 'Your account expires in %s.',
'no_time'=> 'Your account just expired.',
);
This facilitates, for example, this Locale::Maketext vernacular which becomes:
'Your account [duration,_1,_2,expired %s ago,expires in,just expired].' => '[Votre compte [duration,_1,_2,a expire il ya,expire dans,vient d'expirer].'
3. Time Resolution and Units
• units
Specify units to format duration with. Arguments will be passed to
DateTime::Format's in_unit() method.
Example:
my $fmt = DateTime::Format::Human::Duration->new();
my $d = DateTime::Duration->new(...);
my $s = $fmt->format_duration($d, 'units' => [qw/years months days/] );
# $s == '1 year, 7 months, and 16 days'
Possible values include: years months weeks days hours minutes seconds nanoseconds
• precision
By default, the duration will be formatted using nanosecond resolution. Resolution
can be reduced by passing 'years', 'months', 'weeks', 'days', 'hours', 'minutes',
or 'seconds' to the 'precision' argument.
Example:
my $fmt = DateTime::Format::Human::Duration->new();
my $d = DateTime::Duration->new(...);
print $fmt->format_duration($d);
# '1 year, 7 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 13 hours, 43 minutes, and 15 seconds'
print $fmt->format_duration($d, 'precision' => 'days');
# '1 year, 7 months, 2 weeks, and 2 days'
• significant_units
By default, the duration will be formatted using all specified units. To restrict
the number of units output, set this to a value of one or more.
Example:
my $fmt = DateTime::Format::Human::Duration->new();
my $d = DateTime::Duration->new(...);
print $fmt->format_duration($d, 'significant_units' => 1);
# '3 days'
print $fmt->format_duration($d, 'significant_units' => 2);
# '3 days and 10 hours'
print $fmt->format_duration($d, 'significant_units' => 3);
# '3 days, 10 hours, and 27 minutes'
LOCALIZATION
Localization is provided by the included DateTime::Format::Human::Duration::Locale
modules.
Included are DateTime::Format::Human::Duration::Locale::es,
DateTime::Format::Human::Duration::Locale::fr,
DateTime::Format::Human::Duration::Locale::pt,
DateTime::Format::Human::Duration::Locale::de,
DateTime::Format::Human::Duration::Locale::it
More will be included as time permits/folks volunteer/CLDR becomes an option
They are setup this way:
DateTime::Format::Human::Duration::Locale::XYZ where 'XYZ' is the ISO code of
DateTime::Locale
It can have one of 2 functions:
get_human_span_hashref()
Takes no arguments, should return a hashref of this structure:
sub get_human_span_hashref {
return {
'no_oxford_comma' => 1,
'no_time' => 'pas le temps',
'and' => 'et',
'year' => 'an',
'years' => 'ans',
'month' => 'mois',
'months' => 'mois',
'week' => 'semaine',
'weeks' => 'semaines',
'day' => 'jour',
'days' => 'jours',
'hour' => 'heure',
'hours' => 'heures',
'minute' => 'minute',
'minutes' => 'minutes',
'second' => 'seconde',
'seconds' => 'seconds',
'nanosecond' => 'nanoseconde',
'nanoseconds' => 'nanosecondes',
};
}
get_human_span_from_units()
Try to use "get_human_span_hashref()" if the locale allows for it since it's much
easier. If you cannot, however, then this will give you the maximum level of
configurability.
This function receives a hashref of duration values, and a hashref of the "standard
args". It should return the localized string.
sub get_human_span_from_units {
my ($duration_values_hr, $args_hr) = @_;
...;
return $string; # 1 year, 2days, 4 hours, and 17 minutes
}
Please see the example in "t/lib/DateTime/Format/Human/Duration/Locale/nb.pm".
LOCALIZATION of DateTime::Format modules
DateTime does an excellent job at implementing localization. Often DateTime::Format based
class's either don't support localization or they implement it haphazardly and
inconsistently.
With this module I hope to model a localization scheme that is inline with DateTime and is
consistent and reuseable between <DateTime::Format> based classes.
The idea is to determine the locale to use based on a DateTime object.
XYZ::Locale should handle looking up (and caching if appropriate) the locale and loading
the necessary locale module XYZ::Locale::fr
The specific locale module holds the data and possibly logic necessary to do what XYZ does
in the vernacular of the given locale.
TODO
Eventually the generic logic will be re-broken out into its own module for re-use by your
class and I'll have more detailed POD about how to do it.
In the meantime if you're interested please contact me and I'd be happy to help and/or
expediate this TODO.
Also, Dave Rolksy has mentioned to me that this sort of locale data might be appropriate
for DateTime::Locale directly from CLDR. If that happens this module will be changed to
use that if possible.
FAQ
Why would I want to use this?
So you can localize your application's output of time periods without having to do a lot
of logic each time you wanted to say it.
Locale::Maketext::Utils has/will have a duration() bracket notation method which prompted
this module's existence
duration() was prompted by its datetime() brother, all of which uses the most excellent
DateTime project!
Why did my duration say '62 seconds' instead of '1 minute and 2 seconds'
Because you used an ambiguous duration (one without a base) so there is no way to apply
date math and accurately represent the number of each given item in that duration since it
may or may not span leap-[second, days, years, etc..]
In other words do this (so that your duration can be specifically calculated):
$dtb = $dta->clone->add('seconds'=> 62);
my $duration = $dta - $dtb; # has a base, its not ambiguous
print $span->format_duration($duration); # 1 minutes and 2 seconds
not this:
my $duration = DateTime::Duration->new('seconds'=> 62); # no base, it is ambiguous
print $span->format_duration($duration); # 62 seconds
Note "format_duration_between"(), does not suffer from this since we're using a specific
DateTime object already.
print $span->format_duration_between( $dt, $dt->clone()->add('seconds'=> 62) ); # 1 minute and 2 seconds
Why do you put a comma before the 'and' in a group of more than 2 items?
We want to use the so-called Oxford comma to avoid ambiguity.
My DateTime::Format::Human::Duration::Locale::XX still outputs in English!
That is because it defined neither the "get_human_span_hashref()" or the
"get_human_span_from_units()" functions
It must define one of them or defaults are used.
Why didn't you just use 'DateTime::Format::Duration'
Essencially DateTime::Format::Duration is an object representing a single strftime() type
string to apply to any given duration. This is not flexible enough for the intent of this
module.
DateTime::Format::Duration is not a bad module its just for a different purpose than
DateTime::Format::Human::Duration
• It was not localizable
You either got '2 days' or '1 days' which a) forces it to be in English and b) doesn't
even make sense in English.
You could get around that by adding logic each time you wanted to call it but that is
just messy.
• Had to keep an item even if it was zero
If 'days' was in there you got '0 days', we only want items with a value to show.
That'd also require a lot of logic each time you wanted to call which is again messy.
• This module has no need for reparsing output back into an object
Since the datetime info for 2 points in time are generally in a form easily rendered
into a DateTime object it'd be silly to even attempt to store and parse the output of
this module back into an object.
Plus since it all depends on the locale it is in it'd be difficult.
The purpose of DateTime::Format::Human::Duration was to generate a localized human
language description of a duration without the caller needing to supply any logic.
DIAGNOSTICS
Throws no warnings or errors of its own
CONFIGURATION AND ENVIRONMENT
DateTime::Format::Human::Duration requires no configuration files or environment
variables.
DEPENDENCIES
None.
INCOMPATIBILITIES
None reported.
BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
No bugs have been reported.
Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-datetime-format-span@rt.cpan.org", or
through the web interface at <http://rt.cpan.org>.
AUTHOR
Daniel Muey "<http://drmuey.com/cpan_contact.pl>"
LICENCE AND COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2008, Daniel Muey "<http://drmuey.com/cpan_contact.pl>". All rights
reserved.
This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
terms as Perl itself. See perlartistic.
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
BECAUSE THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE SOFTWARE,
TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE
COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE SOFTWARE "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF
ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO
THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE SOFTWARE PROVE
DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR, OR CORRECTION.
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