From: "ara.t.howard" <ara.t.howard@...>
Date: 2008-09-28T15:26:18+09:00
Subject: Re: Parsing a time span


On Sep 27, 2008, at 9:50 PM, Eric Marthinsen wrote:

> Hello-
>
> I'm trying to find the best way to turn a string like "3 days" or "72
> hours" into some sort of time span representation. My first question  
> is
> what is the best way to store a duration like this? In seconds?  
> Second,
> are there any good tools for parsing a string like this? I'm aware of
> the Duration library, but the author doesn't consider it stable, so  
> I'd
> prefer something stable and supported. Thanks in advance.
>
> Regards-
> Eric
> -- 
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
>

very liberal, but useful


cfp:~ > cat a.rb
def duration_for spec
   ret = nil
   if((m = %r/^ (\d+(?:\.\d+)?) : (\d+(?:\.\d+)?) : (\d+(?:\.\d+)?) $/ 
iox.match(spec.to_s)))
     m, h, m, s, ignored = m.to_a
     h, m, s = Float(h), Float(m), Float(s)
     ret = (h * 60 * 60) + (m * 60) + (s)
   else
     pat = %r/(\d+(?:\.\d+)?)\s*([sSmMhHdDwWyY][^\d]*)?/
     begin
       "#{ spec }".scan(pat) do |m|
         n = Float m[0]
         unit = m[1]
         if unit
           factor =
             case unit
               when %r/^m/i
                 case unit
                   when %r/^mo/i
                     7 * (60 * 60 * 24)
                   else
                     60
                 end
               when %r/^h/i
                 60 * 60
               when %r/^d/i
                 60 * 60 * 24
               when %r/^w/i
                 7 * (60 * 60 * 24)
               when %r/^y/i
                 365 * 7 * (60 * 60 * 24)
               else
                 1
             end
           n *= factor
         end
         ret ||= 0.0
         ret += n
       end
     rescue
       raise "bad time spec <#{ spec }>"
     end
   end
   ret
end


p duration_for('1 minute')
p duration_for('1 hour and 1 minute')
p duration_for('6 days, 3 hours and 1 minute')




cfp:~ > ruby a.rb
60.0
3660.0
529260.0




a @ http://codeforpeople.com/
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