javascript-time-ago
Advanced tools
The `javascript-time-ago` npm package is used to format dates and times in a human-readable way, such as '5 minutes ago' or '2 days ago'. It supports multiple languages and locales, making it a versatile tool for internationalization.
Basic Usage
This feature allows you to format a date into a human-readable string indicating the time elapsed since that date. The example shows how to set up the package for English and format a date to '1 minute ago'.
const TimeAgo = require('javascript-time-ago');
const en = require('javascript-time-ago/locale/en');
TimeAgo.addLocale(en);
const timeAgo = new TimeAgo('en-US');
console.log(timeAgo.format(new Date(Date.now() - 60 * 1000))); // '1 minute ago'Custom Styles
This feature allows you to define custom styles for formatting the elapsed time. The example demonstrates how to create a custom style and use it to format a date.
const TimeAgo = require('javascript-time-ago');
const en = require('javascript-time-ago/locale/en');
TimeAgo.addLocale(en);
const timeAgo = new TimeAgo('en-US');
const customStyle = {
steps: [
{ formatAs: 'second' },
{ formatAs: 'minute' },
{ formatAs: 'hour' },
{ formatAs: 'day' },
{ formatAs: 'week' },
{ formatAs: 'month' },
{ formatAs: 'year' }
]
};
console.log(timeAgo.format(new Date(Date.now() - 60 * 1000), customStyle)); // '1 minute ago'Localization
This feature supports multiple languages and locales, allowing you to format dates in different languages. The example shows how to set up the package for both English and Spanish.
const TimeAgo = require('javascript-time-ago');
const en = require('javascript-time-ago/locale/en');
const es = require('javascript-time-ago/locale/es');
TimeAgo.addLocale(en);
TimeAgo.addLocale(es);
const timeAgoEn = new TimeAgo('en-US');
const timeAgoEs = new TimeAgo('es-ES');
console.log(timeAgoEn.format(new Date(Date.now() - 60 * 1000))); // '1 minute ago'
console.log(timeAgoEs.format(new Date(Date.now() - 60 * 1000))); // 'hace 1 minuto'Moment.js is a widely-used library for parsing, validating, manipulating, and formatting dates. It offers extensive functionality for date and time manipulation, but it is larger in size compared to `javascript-time-ago` and has been deprecated in favor of more modern solutions.
date-fns provides a comprehensive set of functions for working with dates in JavaScript. It is modular, allowing you to import only the functions you need, which can result in smaller bundle sizes. It also supports internationalization, similar to `javascript-time-ago`.
timeago.js is a small library used to format dates in a 'time ago' style. It is lightweight and easy to use, but it may not offer as many customization options or support for as many locales as `javascript-time-ago`.
International higly customizable relative date/time formatter (both for past and future dates).
Formats a date/timestamp to:
For React users there's also a React component.
This is a readme for version 2.x. For older versions, see version 1.x readme. See a migration guide for migrating from version 1.x to version 2.x.
npm install javascript-time-ago --save
import TimeAgo from 'javascript-time-ago'
// Load locale-specific relative date/time formatting rules and labels.
import en from 'javascript-time-ago/locale/en'
// Add locale-specific relative date/time formatting rules and labels.
TimeAgo.addLocale(en)
// Create relative date/time formatter.
const timeAgo = new TimeAgo('en-US')
timeAgo.format(new Date())
// "just now"
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 60 * 1000)
// "a minute ago"
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 2 * 60 * 60 * 1000)
// "2 hours ago"
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000)
// "a day ago"
This library includes date/time formatting rules and labels for any language.
No languages are loaded default: a developer must manually choose which languages should be loaded. The languages should be imported from javascript-time-ago/locale and then added via TimeAgo.addLocale(...). An example of using Russian language:
import TimeAgo from 'javascript-time-ago'
// Load locale-specific relative date/time formatting rules and labels.
import en from 'javascript-time-ago/locale/en'
import ru from 'javascript-time-ago/locale/ru'
// Add locale-specific relative date/time formatting rules and labels.
// "en" is the default (fallback) locale.
// (that could be changed via `TimeAgo.setDefaultLocale(...)`)
TimeAgo.addLocale(en)
TimeAgo.addLocale(ru)
// cyka blyat
const timeAgo = new TimeAgo('ru-RU')
timeAgo.format(new Date())
// "только что"
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 60 * 1000)
// "1 минуту назад"
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 2 * 60 * 60 * 1000)
// "2 часа назад"
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000)
// "1 день назад"
This library allows for any custom logic for formatting time difference labels:
What scale should be used for measuring the time difference: should it be precise down to the second, or should it only calculate it up to a minute, or should it start from being more precise at the start and then gradually decrease its precision as the time goes on.
What labels should be used: should it use the standard built-in labels for the languages ("... minutes ago", "... min. ago", "...s"), or should it use custom ones, or should it skip using relative time labels in some cases and instead output something like "Dec 11, 2015".
Such configuration comes under the name of "preset".
While a completely custom preset could be supplied, this library comes with several built-in presets that some people might find useful.
Historically it's not the default preset, but it goes under the name of "default".
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 60 * 1000, 'default')
// "1 minute ago"
The "approximate" preset is (historically) the default one.
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 60 * 1000)
// "1 minute ago"
The "twitter" preset mimics Twitter style of time ago ("1m", "2h", "Mar 3", "Apr 4, 2012")
timeAgo.format(new Date() - 1, 'twitter')
// "1s"
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 60 * 1000, 'twitter')
// "1m"
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 2 * 60 * 60 * 1000, 'twitter')
// "2h"
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 2 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000, 'twitter')
// "Mar 3"
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 365 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000, 'twitter')
// "Mar 5, 2017"
The "twitter" preset uses Intl for formatting day/month/year labels. If Intl is not available (for example, in Internet Explorer), it falls back to the default labels for months/years intervals: "1 mo. ago"/"1 yr. ago".
Not all locales are applicable for this preset: only those having tiny.json time labels.
Same as the "approximate" preset but without the "ago" part. I guess this preset should be considered a "legacy" one and will be removed in the next major version.
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 60 * 1000, 'time')
// "1 minute"
Not all locales are applicable for this preset: only those having long-time.json.
The above sections explained all the basics required for using this library in a project.
This part of the documentation contains some advanced topics for those willing to have a better understanding of how this library works internally.
This library comes with several "presets" built-in. Each of those presets is an object defining its own flavour (the name's historical) and gradation. A completely custom "preset" object may be passed as a second parameter to .format(date, preset), having the following shape:
flavour – Preferred time labels style. Is "long" by default. Can be either a string (e.g. "short") or an array of preferred "flavours" in which case each one of them is tried until a supported one is found. For example, ["tiny", "short"] will search for tiny time labels first and then fall back to short ones if tiny time labels aren't defined for the language. short, long and narrowtime labels are always present for each language.
gradation – Time interval measurement units scale. Is convenient by default. Another one available is canonical. A developer may supply a custom gradation which must be an array of steps each of them having either a unit: string or a format(value, locale): string function. See Twitter preset for such an advanced example.
units – A list of time interval measurement units which can be used in the output. E.g. ["second", "minute", "hour", ...]. By default all available units are used. This is only used to filter out some of the non-conventional time units like "quarter" which is present in CLDR data.
(the name's historical; will be renamed to "style" in the next major version)
Relative date/time labels come in various styles: long, short, narrow are the standard CLDR ones (always present), possibly accompanied by other ones like tiny ("1m", "2h", ...). Refer to locale/en for an example.
import english from 'javascript-time-ago/locale/en'
english.tiny // '1s', '2m', '3h', '4d', …
english.narrow // '1 sec. ago', '2 min. ago', …
english.short // '1 sec. ago', '2 min. ago', …
english.long // '1 second ago', '2 minutes ago', …
tiny is supposed to be the shortest one possible. It's not a CLDR-defined one and has been defined only for a small subset of languages (en, ru, ko, and several others).
narrow is a CLDR-defined one and is intended to be shorter than short, or at least no longer than it. I personally find narrow a weird one because for some locales it's the same as short and for other locales it's a really weird one (e.g. for Russian).
short is "short".
long is "regular".
A gradation is a list of time interval measurement steps.
[
{
unit: 'second',
},
{
unit: 'minute',
factor: 60,
threshold: 59.5
},
{
unit: 'hour',
factor: 60 * 60,
threshold: 59.5 * 60
},
…
]
Each step is described by:
unit — a localized time measurement unit: second, minute, hour, day, month, year are the standardized CLDR ones.factor — a divider for the supplied time interval (in seconds).threshold — a minimum time interval value (in seconds) required for this gradation step. Each step must have a threshold defined except for the first one. Can a number or a function(now: number, future: boolean) returning a number. Some advanced threshold customization is possible like threshold_for_[prev-unit] (see ./source/gradation/convenient.js).granularity — for example, 5 for minute to allow only 5-minute intervals: 0 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, etc.If a gradation step should output not simply a time interval of a certain time unit but something different instead then it may be described by:
threshold — same as above.format — a function(value, locale) returning a string. value argument is the date/time being formatted as passed to TimeAgo.format(value): either a number or a Date. locale argument is the selected locale (aka "BCP 47 language tag", e.g. ru-RU). For example, the built-in Twitter gradation has regular minute and hour steps followed by a custom one formatting a date as "day/month/year", e.g. Jan 24, 2018.For more gradation examples see source/gradation folder.
Built-in gradations:
import {
canonical, // '1 second ago', '2 minutes ago', …
convenient // 'just now', '5 minutes ago', …
} from 'javascript-time-ago/gradation'
When given future dates .format() produces the corresponding output, e.g. "in 5 minutes", "in a year", etc.
The default locale is en and can be changed: TimeAgo.setDefaultLocale('ru').
This library is based on Intl.RelativeTimeFormat.
There is also a React component built upon this library which autorefreshes itself.
(this is an "advanced" section)
Intl global object is not required for this library, but, for example, if you choose to use the built-in twitter style then it will fall back to the default style if Intl is not available.
Intl is present in all modern web browsers and is absent from some of the old ones: Internet Explorer 10, Safari 9 and iOS Safari 9.x (which can be solved using Intl polyfill).
Node.js starting from 0.12 has Intl built-in, but only includes English locale data by default. If your app needs to support more locales than English on server side (e.g. Server-Side Rendering) then you'll need to use Intl polyfill.
An example of applying Intl polyfill:
npm install intl@1.2.4 --save
Node.js
import IntlPolyfill from 'intl'
const locales = ['en', 'ru', ...]
if (typeof Intl === 'object') {
if (!Intl.DateTimeFormat || Intl.DateTimeFormat.supportedLocalesOf(locales).length !== locales.length) {
Intl.DateTimeFormat = IntlPolyfill.DateTimeFormat
}
} else {
global.Intl = IntlPolyfill
}
Web browser: only download intl package if the web browser doesn't support it, and only download the required locale.
async function initIntl() {
if (typeof Intl === 'object') {
return
}
await Promise.all([
import('intl'),
import('intl/locale-data/jsonp/en'),
import('intl/locale-data/jsonp/ru'),
...
])
}
initIntl().then(...)
FAQs
Localized relative date/time formatting
The npm package javascript-time-ago receives a total of 369,894 weekly downloads. As such, javascript-time-ago popularity was classified as popular.
We found that javascript-time-ago demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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