Convert duration to hours:minutes:seconds (or similar) in Rails 3 or Ruby

Question

I have a feeling there is a simple/built-in way to do this but I can't find it.

I have a duration (in seconds) in an integer and I want to display it in a friendly format.

e.g. 3600 would be displayed as "01:00:00" or "1 hour" or something.

I can do it with time_ago_in_words(Time.zone.now+3600) but that feels like a bit of a hack, there is no reason to add/subtract from the current time just to format this value. Is there a duration_in_words() or something?

Thanks

Lev Lukomsky · Answer 1 · 2021-05-18T11:19:44.390

212

Summing up:

assuming that total_seconds = 3600

Option 1:

distance_of_time_in_words(total_seconds) #=> "about 1 hour"

Option 2:

Time.at(total_seconds).utc.strftime("%H:%M:%S") #=> "01:00:00"

Note: it overflows, eg. for total_seconds = 25.hours.to_i it'll return "01:00:00" also

Option 3:

seconds = total_seconds % 60
minutes = (total_seconds / 60) % 60
hours = total_seconds / (60 * 60)

format("%02d:%02d:%02d", hours, minutes, seconds) #=> "01:00:00"

Option 4:

ActiveSupport::Duration.build(total_seconds).inspect #=> "1 hour"

# OR

parts = ActiveSupport::Duration.build(total_seconds).parts
"%02d:%02d:%02d" % [parts.fetch(:hours, 0),
                    parts.fetch(:minutes, 0),
                    parts.fetch(:seconds, 0)] #=> "01:00:00"

edited May 18 '21 at 11:19

answered Mar 28 '12 at 22:38

Lev Lukomsky

6,346
4
34
24

1

The distance_of_time_in_words method is an ActionView Helper, thus needs to be called from the View (not the controller). http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/DateHelper.html – msdundar Jun 29 '14 at 13:15
14

Note that the strftime option will overflow at 24 hours. If your duration is 25 hours, it will display `01:00:00`. – Gabe Martin-Dempesy Feb 05 '15 at 17:00
3

this does not work for negative times, for example -1800 returns -1h 30m instead of -30m – Arnold Roa Feb 07 '17 at 16:00
Note that option 4 only works with `Duration.build`; if you try it with `3600.seconds` you'll get `"00:00:3600"`. – David Moles Sep 08 '21 at 23:15

score 94 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 14 '10 at 01:59

94

See: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/DateHelper.html

distance_of_time_in_words(3600)
 => "about 1 hour"

answered Nov 14 '10 at 01:59

allan

1,269
9
7

1

thanks i looked at that but thought i had to provide two times.. what a nub! – cydonia Nov 14 '10 at 02:13
1

yeah, those examples are daft – allan Nov 14 '10 at 02:18
1

distance_of_time_in_words(from_time, to_time, ...) – boulder_ruby Aug 12 '12 at 02:45
1

Also, if you want this to be very specific and not "round" the duration, check out Radar's gem: https://github.com/radar/distance_of_time_in_words. Drop-in replacement for `distance_of_time_in_words` and you can get the rounded number by passing `vague: true` as an option. – Joshua Pinter May 30 '19 at 14:43

score 51 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 16 '15 at 01:27

51

Ruby's string % operator is too unappreciated and oft forgotten.

"%02d:%02d:%02d:%02d" % [t/86400, t/3600%24, t/60%60, t%60]

Given t is a duration in seconds, this emits a zero-padded colon-separated string including days. Example:

t = 123456
"%02d:%02d:%02d:%02d" % [t/86400, t/3600%24, t/60%60, t%60]
=> "01:10:17:36"

Lovely.

answered Apr 16 '15 at 01:27

IAmNaN

10,305
3
53
51

29

That's an odd definition of "lovely". – Marc Bollinger May 12 '15 at 22:59
12

The `%` says, "Take the array of parameters from my right and insert them into the format string on my left." In that respect, it is similar to `printf` in C\C++ only more concise and can be used in an assignment. Yes, I call that lovely. And powerful. There are examples that would demonstrate this eloquence better, but they wouldn't answer the question. Your snark is not appreciated, btw. – IAmNaN May 13 '15 at 17:54

score 27 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 14 '10 at 20:20

27

I guess you could do also something like:

(Time.mktime(0)+3600).strftime("%H:%M:%S")

To format it as you wish.

BTW, originally I thought of using Time.at() but seems that EPOCH time on my Ubuntu is Thu Jan 01 01:00:00 +0100 1970 and not 00:00:00 hours as I expected, and therefore if I do:

Time.at(3600).strftime("%H:%M:%S")

Gives me 1 hour more than wanted.

answered Nov 14 '10 at 20:20

Cristobal Viedma

990
1
8
20

ahh, might something to do because of summer time? – Cristobal Viedma Nov 14 '10 at 20:20
7

The only catch is if you're dealing with times more than 24 hours. In that case the hours will roll back to a low number. – metavida Aug 23 '11 at 15:30
For times greater than 24 hours, %j will give you the number of days (as long as it is less than 365) – BananaNeil Feb 19 '14 at 08:41

score 22 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:26

I use this to show time durations in my Rails Project:

Add a custom method to the Integer class. You can create a new file called pretty_duration.rb in the initializers folder:

class Integer
    def pretty_duration
        parse_string = 
            if self < 3600
                '%M:%S'
            else
                '%H:%M:%S'
            end

        Time.at(self).utc.strftime(parse_string)
    end
end

Call seconds.pretty_duration anywhere in your project:

275.pretty_duration     # => "04:35"
9823.pretty_duration    # => "02:43:43"

This answer builds up on Lev Lukomsky's Code

Worked great. Thank you for this. – Donn Felker Nov 23 '17 at 03:02 — Donn Felker, Nov 23 '17 at 03:02

score 14 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 26 '17 at 06:58

This one uses the obscure divmod method to divide and modulo at the same time, so it handles Float seconds properly:

def duration(seconds)
  minutes, seconds = seconds.divmod(60)
  hours, minutes = minutes.divmod(60)
  days, hours = hours.divmod(24)

  "#{days.to_s.rjust(3)}d #{hours.to_s.rjust(2)}h #{minutes.to_s.rjust(2)}m #{seconds}s"
end

score 12 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 24 '20 at 19:25

12

ActiveSupport::Duration.build + inspect gives you valid results

 >> ActiveSupport::Duration.build(125557).inspect
 => "1 day, 10 hours, 52 minutes, and 37 seconds"

answered Jun 24 '20 at 19:25

Sathish

1,245
2
15
22

elegant! works well for me. result for value `75`: `1 minute and 15 seconds ` – Yshmarov Feb 04 '21 at 17:36
It can even be used to extract out individual parts to build a custom string. e.g. `ActiveSupport::Duration.build(125557).parts` will give `{ days: 1, hours: 10, minutes: 52, seconds: 37 }`. – Waseem Aug 25 '21 at 15:20

score 7 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 02 '15 at 12:59

Using Time.utc.strftime works only for values when total number of hours is less then 24:

2.2.2 :004 > Time.at(60 * 60).utc.strftime('%H h %M m')
=> "01 h 00 m"

For greater values it returns incorrect results:

2.2.2 :006 > Time.at(60 * 60 * 24).utc.strftime('%H h %M m')
 => "00 h 00 m"

I suggest using the simplest method I found for this problem:

  def formatted_duration total_seconds
    hours = total_seconds / (60 * 60)
    minutes = (total_seconds / 60) % 60
    seconds = total_seconds % 60
    "#{ hours } h #{ minutes } m #{ seconds } s"
  end

You can always adjust returned value to your needs.

score 6 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 11 '14 at 05:55

6

Be careful with the duration longer than one day.

(timing/3600).to_i.to_s.rjust(2,'0') + ":"+Time.at(timing).utc.strftime("%M:%S")

answered Aug 11 '14 at 05:55

Xiao Bin

129
1
5

Give an example of input/output highlighting how this solves the corner case – Cyril Duchon-Doris Aug 16 '18 at 09:26

score 5 · Answer 10 · answered Aug 16 '18 at 09:45

An answer inspired from Lev Lukomsky's one taking advantage of ActiveSupport::Duration, and handling milliseconds (useful to benchmark code)

# duration in ms modulus number of ms in one second
milliseconds = duration.in_milliseconds % 1.second.in_milliseconds

# duration in seconds modulus number of seconds in one minute
seconds = (duration / 1.second) % (1.minute / 1.second)

# duration in minutes modulus number of minutes in one hour
minutes = (duration / 1.minute) % (1.hour / 1.minute)

# duration in hours modulus number of hours in one day
hours = (duration / 1.hour) % (1.day / 1.hour)

format("%02d:%02d:%02d:%03d", hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds) #=> "12:05:00:001"

Of course you can extend this easily with days, months, years, etc using related ActiveSupport methods and repeating the same structure.

Keep in mind that for too long durations, this may be inaccurate since the duration of 1 month is not fixed in number of days, and I'm not sure how AS:Duration deals with that.

score 5 · Answer 11 · edited Jun 19 '20 at 02:42

5

Shout out to @joshuapinter who gave the best answer (in the form of a comment).

Use the drop-in replacement dotiw gem to gain more control over the accuracy of the output to suit different needs:

https://github.com/radar/distance_of_time_in_words

Sample view code:

%label
  Logoff after:
  - expire_in = distance_of_time_in_words(Time.now, Time.now + user.custom_timeout.minutes, :only => [:minutes, :hours, :days])
  = expire_in

Resulting in something like this:

Logoff after: 1 day, 13 hours, and 20 minutes

edited Jun 19 '20 at 02:42

Joshua Pinter

45,245
23
243
245

answered Nov 09 '19 at 16:11

Jon Kern

3,186
32
34

Note that you can also use `dotiw` to generate other formats, e.g.: `DOTIW::TimeHash.new(1.days + 2.hours + 3.minutes + 4.seconds, nil).to_hash.each_value.map { |v| format('%02d', v) }.join(':')` produces `01:02:03:04`. (This particular format gets a bit unreadable beyond days, though.) – David Moles Sep 08 '21 at 23:24

score 3 · Answer 12 · answered Jan 01 '20 at 06:31

3

Just to throw in my 2 cents:

Time.at(i).utc.strftime((i < 3600) ? '%-M minutes and %-S seconds' : '%-H hours, %-M minutes, and %-S seconds')

Built off of Xiao Bin's answer.

answered Jan 01 '20 at 06:31

Daniel

7,006
7
43
49

Luciano Ribas · Answer 13 · 2021-05-06T23:51:59.583

2

Here a simple solution using divmod and map:

    hours = 3.5456
    value = (hours*60).divmod(60).map{ |a| "%02d"%[a.floor] }.join(":")
    => "03:32"

edited May 06 '21 at 23:51

answered Aug 21 '19 at 17:55

Luciano Ribas

309
2
4

8

Please add some context to the answer. – Paul Dawson Aug 21 '19 at 18:03

Tristan Hill · Answer 14 · 2023-04-15T17:54:04.213

0

Similar to option 4 in this answer but deals with duration going over a day

duration = ActiveSupport::Duration.build(total_seconds)
%i(hours minutes seconds).map { |part| "%02d" % (duration.parts.fetch(part, 0) + (part == :hours ? duration.in_days.to_i * 24 : 0)) }.join(':')

edited Apr 15 '23 at 17:54

answered Apr 14 '23 at 16:33

Tristan Hill

171
1
3

1

clarified answer – Tristan Hill Apr 15 '23 at 17:49

Convert duration to hours:minutes:seconds (or similar) in Rails 3 or Ruby

14 Answers14

I use this to show time durations in my Rails Project:

Linked