NAME

DateTime::Format::Span - Get a locale specific string describing the span of a given duration

VERSION

This document describes DateTime::Format::Span version 0.0.1

SYNOPSIS

  use DateTime;
  use DateTime::Format::Span

  my $span = DateTime::Format::Span->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 ambiguouse) 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 expiré il ya,expire dans,vient d'expirer].'

LOCALIZATION

Localization is provided by the included DateTime::Format::Span::Locale modules.

Included are DateTime::Format::Span::Locale::es, DateTime::Format::Span::Locale::fr, DateTime::Format::Span::Locale::pt

More will be included as time permits/folks volunteer :)

They are setup this way:

DateTime::Format::Span::Locale::XYZ where 'XYZ' is the ISO code of DateTime::Locale

It can have one of 2 functions used in this order:

get_human_span_from_units_array()

Try to use get_human_span_hashref() if the locale is disposed to it since its much easier... That said:

Takes the arguments as described in the example below, should return the localized "span" string.

sub get_human_span_from_units_array {
    my ($years, $months, $weeks, $days, $hours, $minutes, $seconds, $nanoseconds, $args_hr) = @_; # note: has no negative numbers
    ...
    return $string; # 1 year, 2days, 4 hours, and 17 minutes
}

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',      
    };
}

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 (ans caching if appropriate) the locale and loading the necessary locale module XYZ::Locale::fr

The specific locale module holds the data and possibly logic neccesary 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 pleaes contact me and I'd be happy to help and/or expediate this TODO.

DIAGNOSTICS

Throws no warnings or errors of its own

CONFIGURATION AND ENVIRONMENT

DateTime::Format::Span 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.

IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE AS PERMITTED BY THE ABOVE LICENCE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE SOFTWARE TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER SOFTWARE), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

cpanm DateTime::Format::Span

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install DateTime::Format::Span