SORelativeDateTransformer is a value transformer that generates a human-readable phrase expressing the relative difference between a given date and the current date.
For example, when the current date-time is 2010-12-05 11:30, then
... 2010-12-05 11:00 is transformed to "30 minutes ago"
... 2010-12-01 11:00 is transformed to "5 days ago"
... 2010-12-25 08:00 is transformed to "in 2 weeks"
The transformer does not provide reverse transformations; you can only transform from an NSDate to an NSString.
Add the source files and localized strings bundle to your project.
SORelativeDateTransformer.h
SORelativeDateTransformer.m
SORelativeDataTransformer.bundle
Create an instance of SORelativeDateTransformer wherever you need to generate relative date phrases.
// Display a file's creation date relative to today's date
NSURL *someFilePath = ...;
NSDictionary *attribs = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] attributesOfItemAtPath:someFilePath error:NULL];
NSDate *dateModified = [attribs fileModificationDate];
// fileModificationDate is 2010-10-01 12:00:00TZ;
// Date now is 2010-10-30 12:00:00TZ
SORelativeDateTransformer *relativeDateTransformer = [[SORelativeDateTransformer alloc] init];
NSString *relativeDate = [relativeDateTransformer transformedValue: dateModified];
NSLog (@"This file was modified %@.", relativeDate); // ==> "This file was modified 3 weeks ago."
The accompanying bundle, SORelativeDateTransformer.bundle, provides localizations for the date component names and their plural forms. Included are localization files for English, French, German, and Spanish.
The localization files also contains an NSString format template for expressing relative past and future dates.
- For past dates, the format template for the English phrase is
"%d %@ ago". - For future dates, the format template is
"in %d %@".
To add your own localizations, add an appropriate language .lproj subdirectory within the SORelativeDateTransformer.bundle directory, then add a .strings file with the lproj.
For example, to add an Italian localization:
# Change working directory to the SORelativeDateTransformer.bundle
cd ${PROJECT_DIR}/SORelativeDateTransformer.bundle
# Copy the English localization subdirectory
# to an appropriately named lproj directory for an Italian localization
cp -R en.lproj it.lproj
# Edit the .strings file within the Italian lproj directory
# to replace the English localization values with Italian equivalents.
# Use your favorite UTF-16-capable text editor.
mate it.lproj/SORelativeDateTransformer.strings
Included is an iOS 4 interactive testing application. You can a date from the date picker and see the generated relative date string below.
SORelativeDateTransformer is compatible with iOS 4 and later, and Mac OS X 10.4 and later.
Use it, hack it, but give me some love.
For a non-attribution license, contact http://standardorbit.net.
Bill Garrison, for the initial implementation. github, bitbucket
Ching-Lan 'digdog' Huang, for his NSDate category NSDate-RelativeDate upon which I based the value transformer. github.
Adam Ernst, for reorganizing into a cleaner layout for easier project integration. github.