react-time-ago

Localized relative date/time formatting (both for past and future dates).

Automatically chooses the right units (seconds, minutes, etc) to format a time interval.

Automatically refreshes itself.

See Demo

Examples:

• just now
• 45s
• 5m
• 15 minutes ago
• 3 hours ago
• in 2 months
• in 5 years
• …

Install

The react-time-ago component uses javascript-time-ago library for generating date/time labels, so both of these packages should be installed:

$ npm install react-time-ago javascript-time-ago --save

If you're not using a bundler then use a standalone version from a CDN.

Use

First, javascript-time-ago must be initialized with some locales:

./src/index.js

import TimeAgo from 'javascript-time-ago'

import en from 'javascript-time-ago/locale/en'
import ru from 'javascript-time-ago/locale/ru'

TimeAgo.addDefaultLocale(en)
TimeAgo.addLocale(ru)

Then, use <ReactTimeAgo/> component:

./src/LastSeen.js

import React from 'react'
import ReactTimeAgo from 'react-time-ago'

export default function LastSeen({ date }) {
  return (
    <div>
      Last seen: <ReactTimeAgo date={date} locale="en-US"/>
    </div>
  )
}

Hook

If you prefer using a React Hook instead of a React Component, the parameters for it are the same as the props for the React component, except:

• tooltip: boolean
• component: React.Component
• wrapperComponent: React.Component
• wrapperProps: object

import { useTimeAgo } from 'react-time-ago'

const result = useTimeAgo(parameters)

Returns an object with properties:

• date: Date — Same as the date input parameter. If the input parameter was a timestamp (number) then it gets converted to a Date.
• formattedDate: string — Formatted date. Example: "5 min ago".
• verboseDate: string — Formatted date (verbose variant). Example: "Thursday, December 20, 2012, 7:00:00 AM GMT+4".

Style

<ReactTimeAgo/> component accepts an optional timeStyle property — it should be a javascript-time-ago style: either a built-in style name (like "round", "round-minute", "twitter", etc) or a custom style object.

<ReactTimeAgo date={date} locale="en-US" timeStyle="twitter"/>

React Native

By default, this component renders a <time/> HTML tag. When using this component in React Native, pass a custom component property:

import React from 'react'
import PropTypes from 'prop-types'
import ReactTimeAgo from 'react-time-ago'

export default function TimeAgo(props) {
  return <ReactTimeAgo {...props} component={Time}/>
}

function Time({ date, verboseDate, tooltip, children }) {
  return <Text>{children}</Text>
}

Time.propTypes = {
  date: PropTypes.instanceOf(Date).isRequired,
  verboseDate: PropTypes.string,
  tooltip: PropTypes.bool.isRequired,
  children: PropTypes.string.isRequired
}

Tooltip

By default, the standard HTML title attribute is used to display a tooltip with the verbose date on mouse over.

For custom tooltip design, a custom tooltip component could be rendered. For that, <ReactTimeAgo/> supports properties:

• tooltip={false} — Instructs the component not to add the default HTML title attribute.
• wrapperComponent — A React component that's gonna wrap the date/time label. Receives properties: children (Example: <time>2 days ago</time>) and verboseDate: string (Example: "Wednesday, January 1, 2000, 10:45:10 PM").
• wrapperProps — If defined, these properties are passed through to the wrapperComponent.

For example, here's how to render a react-responsive-ui/Tooltip:

import React from 'react'
import PropTypes from 'prop-types'
import Tooltip from 'react-responsive-ui/commonjs/Tooltip'
import ReactTimeAgo from 'react-time-ago'
import 'react-time-ago/Tooltip.css'

export default function ReactTimeAgoWithTooltip(props) {
  return (
    <ReactTimeAgo
      {...props}
      wrapperComponent={TooltipContainer}
      tooltip={false}/>
  )
}

const TooltipContainer = ({ verboseDate, children, ...rest }) => (
  <Tooltip {...rest} content={verboseDate}>
    {children}
  </Tooltip>
)

TooltipContainer.propTypes = {
  // `verboseDate` is not generated on server side
  // (because tooltips are only shown on mouse over),
  // so it's not declared a "required" property.
  verboseDate: PropTypes.string,
  children: PropTypes.node.isRequired
}

Future

When given future dates, .format() produces the corresponding output.: "in 5 minutes", "in 10 days", etc.

To restrict the formatted date to be future-only, pass future property, and it will stop when it reaches "zero point" ("in a moment") and won't allow the date to be formatted as a past one.

<ReactTimeAgo future date={date} .../>

CDN

One can use any npm CDN service, e.g. unpkg.com or jsdelivr.com

<!-- Example `[version]`: `2.x` -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/javascript-time-ago@[version]/bundle/javascript-time-ago.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-time-ago@[version]/bundle/react-time-ago.js"></script>

<script>
  TimeAgo.addDefaultLocale({
    locale: 'en',
    now: {
      now: {
        current: "now",
        future: "in a moment",
        past: "just now"
      }
    },
    long: {
      year: {
        past: {
          one: "{0} year ago",
          other: "{0} years ago"
        },
        future: {
          one: "in {0} year",
          other: "in {0} years"
        }
      },
      ...
    }
  })
</script>

<script>
  ...
  <ReactTimeAgo date={new Date()} locale="en-US" timeStyle="twitter"/>
  ...
</script>

Props

// `date: Date` or `timestamp: number`.
// E.g. `new Date()` or `1355972400000`.
date: PropTypes.oneOfType([
  PropTypes.instanceOf(Date),
  PropTypes.number
]).isRequired,

// Preferred locale.
// Is 'en' by default.
// E.g. 'ru-RU'.
locale: PropTypes.string,

// Alternatively to `locale`, one could pass `locales`:
// A list of preferred locales (ordered).
// Will choose the first supported locale from the list.
// E.g. `['ru-RU', 'en-GB']`.
locales: PropTypes.arrayOf(PropTypes.string),

// If set to `true`, then will stop at "zero point"
// when going from future dates to past dates.
// In other words, even if the `date` has passed,
// it will still render as if `date` is `now`.
future: PropTypes.bool,

// Date/time formatting style.
// See `javascript-time-ago` docs on "Styles" for more info.
// E.g. 'round', 'round-minute', 'twitter', 'twitter-first-minute'.
timeStyle: PropTypes.oneOfType([
  PropTypes.string,
  PropTypes.object
]),

// `round` parameter of `javascript-time-ago`.
// See `javascript-time-ago` docs on "Rounding" for more info.
// Examples: "round", "floor".
round: PropTypes.string,

// If specified, the time won't "tick" past this threshold (in seconds).
// For example, if `minTimeLeft` is `60 * 60`
// then the time won't "tick" past "in 1 hour".
minTimeLeft: PropTypes.number,

// A React component to render the relative time label.
// Receives properties:
// * date: Date — The date.
// * verboseDate: string — Formatted verbose date.
// * tooltip: boolean — The `tooltip` property of `<ReactTimeAgo/>` component.
// * children: string — The relative time label.
// * All "unknown" properties that have been passed to `<ReactTimeAgo/>` are passed through to this component.
component: PropTypes.elementType,

// Whether to use HTML `tooltip` attribute to show a verbose date tooltip.
// Is `true` by default.
// Can be set to `false` to disable the native HTML `tooltip`.
tooltip: PropTypes.bool,

// Verbose date formatter.
// By default it's `(date) => new Intl.DateTimeFormat(locale, {…}).format(date)`.
formatVerboseDate: PropTypes.func,

// `Intl.DateTimeFormat` format for formatting verbose date.
// See `Intl.DateTimeFormat` docs for more info.
verboseDateFormat: PropTypes.object,

// (deprecated)
// How often the component refreshes itself.
// When not provided, will use `getNextTimeToUpdate()` feature
// of `javascript-time-ago` styles to determine the update interval.
updateInterval: PropTypes.oneOfType([
  PropTypes.number,
  PropTypes.arrayOf(PropTypes.shape({
    threshold: PropTypes.number,
    interval: PropTypes.number.isRequired
  }))
]),

// (deprecated).
// Set to `false` to disable automatic refresh of the component.
// Is `true` by default.
// I guess no one actually turns auto-update off, so this parameter is deprecated.
tick: PropTypes.bool,

// Allows setting a custom baseline for relative time measurement.
// https://gitlab.com/catamphetamine/react-time-ago/-/issues/4
now: PropTypes.number,

// Allows offsetting the `date` by an arbitrary amount of milliseconds.
// https://gitlab.com/catamphetamine/react-time-ago/-/issues/4
timeOffset: PropTypes.number,

// Pass `false` to use native `Intl.RelativeTimeFormat` / `Intl.PluralRules`
// instead of the polyfilled ones in `javascript-time-ago`.
polyfill: PropTypes.bool,

// (advanced)
// A React Component to wrap the resulting `<time/>` React Element.
// Receives `verboseDate` and `children` properties.
// Also receives `wrapperProps`, if they're passed.
// `verboseDate` can be used for displaying verbose date label
// in an "on mouse over" (or "on touch") tooltip.
// See the "Tooltip" readme section for more info.
// Another example could be having `wrapperComponent`
// being rerendered every time the component refreshes itself.
wrapperComponent: PropTypes.elementType,

// Custom `props` passed to `wrapperComponent`.
wrapperProps: PropTypes.object

TypeScript

This library comes with TypeScript "typings". If you happen to find any bugs in those, create an issue.

GitHub

On March 9th, 2020, GitHub, Inc. silently banned my account (erasing all my repos, issues and comments) without any notice or explanation. Because of that, all source codes had to be promptly moved to GitLab. GitHub repo is now deprecated, and the latest source codes can be found on GitLab, which is also the place to report any issues.

License

MIT