Relative time

Standalone lightweight JavaScript library for relative clocks and time output. No jQuery required.

Works with all browsers that supports Web Cryptography.

Installation

Clone the repository to your directory or download the latest version.

git clone https://github.com/komed3/relative-time

Embed reltime.js or minimized version of this JavaScript library into your HTML file.

<script src="./PATH/TO/FILE/reltime.min.js"></script>

Or use jsDelivr to embed reltime.min.js via free CDN:

<script defer src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/komed3/relative-time/src/reltime.min.js"></script>

Usage

To show a relative time, embed the <reltime> element into your HTML page.

The element can have different attributes as shown in the table below:

Attribute	Possible values	Default	Required
datetime	datetime string (ISO 8601)	Date.now()	yes
format	relative, elapsed, micro, date, datetime, clock	relative	no
precision	second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year	second	no
tense	auto, past, future	auto	no
formatStyle	full, long, medium, short	full	no
threshold	valid ISO8601 Time Duration	P30D	no
locale	DateTimeFormat locales	en	no

datetime

ISO 8601 compliant datetime string like 2022-12-25 00:00:00

format

• relative Displays relative time span to/from specified time point e.g. 2 minutes ago
• elapsed Returns in descending order all time parts e.g. 1y 2m 1d 4h
• micro Returns the largest time part using very short unit e.g. 4y
• datetime Delivers date as local string e.g. Sat, Dec 10. 2022
• date Same as datetime with prefix (default on)
• clock Shows a coutdown or running clock with hours, minutes and seconds e.g. 12:03:43

precision

Precision limits the output to the specified smallest part; e.g. precision=hour deletes minutes and seconds.

For values smaller than the specified precision, just now is printed. For format=clock the output is omitted for seconds at most.

tense

Restricts the output of durations to either the future tense=future or the past tense=past. Events outside of the possible range are output as just now. By default, tense=auto allows both directions.

formatStyle

The formatStyle attribute determines the length of the unit names. This value is passed directly to the Intl function.

For more information click here.

threshold

Use Threshold to display a relative time period beyond the specified value as a date.

Valid values specified in the ISO 8601 format.

locale

One of supported locals for Intl.DateTimeFormat

For more information click here.

Examples

<reltime datetime="2022-12-25 00:00:00"></reltime>
<reltime datetime="2022-12-25 00:00:00" format="elapsed" precision="day"></reltime>
<reltime datetime="2022-12-25 00:00:00" format="datetime" formatStyle="short"></reltime>
<reltime datetime="2022-12-25 00:00:00" threshold="P2Y"></reltime>

Config

You can play around with config constants to use this library however you like.

Supported attributes

const __reltime__config = {
    format: [
        'relative', 'elapsed', 'micro', 'date', 'datetime', 'clock'
    ],
    precision: [
        'second', 'minute', 'hour', 'day', 'week', 'month', 'year'
    ],
    tense: [
        'auto', 'past', 'future'
    ],
    formatStyle: [
        'full', 'long', 'medium', 'short'
    ]
};

Time factors (ms)

const __reltime__factors = {
    year:   31557600000,
    month:   2629800000,
    week:     604800000,
    day:       86400000,
    hour:       3600000,
    minute:       60000,
    second:        1000
};

Internationalization (i18n)

const __reltime__words = {
    second: [ 'second', 'seconds', 'sec', 's' ],
    minute: [ 'minute', 'minutes', 'min', 'm' ],
    hour:   [ 'hour', 'hours', 'hrs', 'h' ],
    day:    [ 'day', 'days', 'day', 'd' ],
    week:   [ 'week', 'weeks', 'wks', 'w' ],
    month:  [ 'month', 'months', 'mth', 'm' ],
    year:   [ 'year', 'years', 'yrs', 'y' ],
    now:    'just now',
    ago:    ' ago',
    in:     'in ',
    on:     'on '
};

Update interval (ms)

const __reltime__interval = 1000;

Threshold to show just now instead of time (ms)

const __reltime__threshold = 10000;