ActivePeriod

ActivePeriod aims to simplify Time-range manipulation.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'active_period'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install active_period

Usage

ActivePeriod was designed to simplify time-range manipulation, specialy with rails (>= 5) and user input

Warning :

• A time-range take place between two date and it's different from an abstract duration of time
• ActivePeriod is limited at full day of time and will always round the starting and ending to the beginning and the ending of the day

Quick view (TL;DR)

require 'active_period'

# Get all user created today
User.where(created_at: Period.today)

# Get how many days there is from the Voyager 2 launch
('20/07/1977'..Time.now).to_period.days.count

# Are we in 2021 ?
Time.now.in? Period.year('01/01/2021')

# Boundless period are also supported
Period.new('24/04/1990'..).days.each # => Enumerable
Period.new(..Time.now).months.reverse_each # => Enumerable

# Write a date for me (I18n supported)
Period.new('20/01/2017'...'20/01/2021').to_s
=> "From the 20 January 2017 to the 20 January 2021 excluded"

# Get all US holidays in the next week (see holiday's section below)
Period.next_week.holidays(:us)

Detailed view

There's two way to create and manipulate a period of time FreePeriod and StandardPeriod

FreePeriod of time

You can declare FreePeriod as simply as :

# With Date objects
Period.new(3.month.ago..Date.today)

# or with Strings
Period.new('01/01/2000'...'01/02/2000')

# or with a mix
Period.new('01/01/2000'..1.week.ago)

# with one bound only
Period.new('01/01/2000'..)

# or in a rails Controller with params
Period.new(params[:start_date]..params[:end_date])

# or from a range
('01/01/2000'...'01/02/2000').to_period

# you can also use [] if .new is too long for you
Period['01/01/2000'...'01/02/2000']

Note : to_period will always return a FreePeriod

FreePeriod can be manipulated with + and -
Doing so will move the start and the end of the period

Period.new('01/01/2000'..'05/01/2000') + 3.day
# is equal to
Period.new('04/01/2000'..'08/01/2000')

StandardPeriod of time

Using StandardPeriod you are limited to strictly bordered periods of time
These periods are day, week, month, quarter and year

# To get the week, 42th day ago
Period.week(42.day.ago)

# To get the first month of 2020
Period.month('01/01/2020')

# or if you like it verbious
ActivePeriod::Month.new('01/01/2020')

# or if you need the current week
Period.week(Time.now)

Note : If you ask for a month, quarter of year, the day part of your param doesn't matter 01/01/2020 give the same result as 14/01/2020 or 29/01/2020

StandardPeriod can be manipulated with + and - and will always return a StandardPeriod of the same type

# Subtraction are made from the start of the period
Period.month('10/02/2000') - 1.day
# Return the previous month

# Addition are made from the end
Period.month('10/02/2000') + 1.day
# Return the next month

Period.week('10/02/2000') + 67.day
# Return a week

StandardPeriod also respond to .next and .prev

Period.month('01/01/2000').next.next.next
# Return the month of April 2000

You can quickly access convenient periods of time with .(last|this|next)_(day|week|month|quarter|year) and .yesterday .today .tomorrow

Period.this_week
# Same as Period.week(Time.now) but shorter

Period.next_month
# Return the next month

Period.last_year
# Return the last year

Period.today
# No comment

HasMany

FreePeriod and some StandardPeriod respond to .days, .weeks, .months, .quarters and .years

HasMany -> [<StandardPeriod>]	.days	.weeks	.months	.quarters	.years
FreePeriod	X	X	X	X	X
StandardPeriod::Day
StandardPeriod::Week	X
StandardPeriod::Month	X	X
StandardPeriod::Quarter	X	X	X
StandardPeriod::Year	X	X	X	X

Called from a FreePeriod all overlapping StandardPeriod are return
Called from a StandardPeriod only strictly included StandardPeriod are return
These methods return an ActivePeriod::Collection implementing Enumerable

Example

# The FreePeriod from 01/01/2021 to 01/02/2021 has 5 weeks
Period.new('01/01/2021'...'01/02/2021').weeks.count # 5

# The StandardPeriod::Month for 01/01/2021 has 4 weeks
Period.month('01/01/2021').weeks.count # 4

# How many day in the current quarter
Period.this_quarter.days.count

# Get all the quarters overlapping a Period of time
Period.new(Time.now..2.month.from_now).quarters.to_a

BelongsTo

StandardPeriod respond to .day, .week, .month, .quarter and .year
These methods return a StandardPeriod who include the current period
FreePeriod does not respond to these methods

BelongTo -> StandardPeriod	.day	.week	.month	.quarter	.year
FreePeriod
StandardPeriod::Day		X	X	X	X
StandardPeriod::Week			X	X	X
StandardPeriod::Month				X	X
StandardPeriod::Quarter					X
StandardPeriod::Year

Example with BelongTo and HasMany

# Get the third day, of the last week, of the second month, of the current year
Period.this_year.months.second.weeks.last.days.third

Period Combination with & and |

You can use & to combine overlapping periods
And | to combine overlapping and tail to head periods
If the given periods cannot combine, then nil will be return
The period we take the ending date from, determine if the ending date is included or excluded

Example for &

# Overlapping periods
(Period['01/01/2021'..'20/01/2021'] & Period['10/01/2021'...'30/01/2021']).to_s
=> "From the 10 January 2021 to the 20 January 2021 included"

# Theses period cannot combine
Period.this_month & Period.next_month
=> nil

Example for |

# Overlapping periods
(Period['01/01/2021'..'20/01/2021'] | Period['10/01/2021'...'30/01/2021']).to_s
=> "From the 01 January 2021 to the 30 January 2021 excluded"

# Example with tail to head
(Period.this_month | Period.next_month).to_s
=> "From the 01 September 2022 to the 31 October 2022 included"
(Period['01/01/2021'..'09/01/2021']  | Period['10/01/2021'..'20/01/2021']).to_s
=> "From the 01 January 2021 to the 20 January 2021 included"

# Theses period cannot combine
Period['01/01/2021'...'09/01/2021'] | Period['10/01/2021'..'20/01/2021']
=> nil

Period clamping with clamp_on

You can use clamp_on to clamp a Period, a date or a range of dates, within a Period. If you user clamp_on on a range of dates, the return value will also be a range of dates, this is to preserve hours/minutes/second precision :warning: The classic clamp apply the param to the caller. It's 42.clamp(1..10) -> 10 and this don't exist (1..10).clamp(42)
clamp_on reverse this logic, and apply the caller to the params.
This choice has been made to avoid a monkey patch on clamp ⚠️ If you clamp_on a range that don't overlap with the caller, the return value is nil

Period.today.clamp_on(Period.this_week) 
=> Period.today

Period.today.clamp_on(Period.last_week)
=> nil

Period.today.clamp_on(3.from_now)
=> # 3.from_now or today ending's time

Boundless Period

Boundless period are fully supported and work as you expect them to do
The values nil, '', Date::Infinity, Float::INFINITY and -Float::INFINITY are supported as start and end You can iterate on the days, weeks, months, quarters and years of an Endless period

('01/01/2021'..nil).days.each { ... }
('01/01/2021'..'').days.each { ... }
('01/01/2021'..).days.each { ... }

You can reverse iterate on the days, weeks, months, quarters and years of an Beginless period

(nil..'01/01/2021').days.reverse_each { ... }
(''..'01/01/2021').days.reverse_each { ... }
(..'01/01/2021').days.reverse_each { ... }

You can create an infinite period of time
Obviously it's not iterable

Period.new(nil..nil).to_s
=> "Limitless time range"

You can specifically forbid boundless period with allow_endless, allow_beginless or with Period.bounded

Period.new('01/01/2020'..'', allow_endless: false)
Period.bounded('01/01/2020'..)
=> ArgumentError (The end date is invalid)

Period.new(..'01/01/2020', allow_beginless: false)
Period.bounded(..'01/01/2020')
=> ArgumentError (The start date is invalid)

ActiveRecord

As Period inherit from Range, you can natively use them in ActiveRecord query

# Get all book published this year
Book.where(published_at: Period.this_year)

# Get all users created after 01/01/2020
User.where(created_at: ('01/01/2020'..).to_period)

Rails Controller

In a Controller, use the error handling to validate the date for you

class BookController < ApplicationController
  def between
    begin
      # Retrieve books from the DB
      @books = Book.where(published: Period.bounded(params[:from]..params[:to]))
    rescue ArgumentError => e
      # Period will handle mis-formatted date and incoherent period
      # I18n is supported for errors messages
      flash[:alert] = e.message
    end
  end
end

I18n and to_s

I18n is supported for en and fr

Period.new('01/01/2000'...'01/02/2001').to_s
=> "From the 01 January 2000 to the 31 January 2001 included"

I18n.locale = :fr
Period.new('01/01/2000'...'01/02/2001').to_s
=> "Du 01 janvier 2000 au 31 janvier 2001 inclus"

Errors are also supported

Period.new 'Foo'..'Bar'
=> ArgumentError (The start date is invalid)

Period.new '01/02/3030'..'Bar'
Period.bounded '01/02/3030'..
=> ArgumentError (The end date is invalid)

Period.new '01/02/3030'..'01/01/2020'
=> ArgumentError (The start date is greater than the end date)

See locales/en.yml to implement your language support

If you need to change the format for a single call

  period.to_s(format: 'Your Format')
  # or
  period.strftime('Your Format')

For a FreePeriod or if you need to print the start and the end of your period differently, use .i18n

  period.i18n do |from, to, excluded_end|
    "You have from #{from.strftime(...)} until #{to.strftime(...)} to deliver the money !"
  end

The tricky case of Weeks

Weeks are implemented following the ISO 8601
So Period.this_month.weeks.first doesn't necessarily include the first days of the month
Also a StandardPeriod and a FreePeriod covering the same range of time, may not includes the same Weeks

TimeZone

Time zone are supported If you change the global Time.zone of your app If your Period begin in a time zone and end in another, you have nothing to do

Holidays

ActivePeriod include an optional support of the gem holidays
If your project include this gem you can use the power of .holidays and .holiday?

.holiday? and .holidays take the same params as Holidays.on except the first one
Holidays.on(Date.civil(2008, 4, 25), :au) become Period.day('24/04/2008').holidays(:au) or Period.day('24/04/2008').holiday?(:au)

require 'holidays'
# Get all worldwide holidays in the current month
Period.this_month.holidays

# Get all US holidays in the next week
Period.next_week.holidays(:us)

# Get all US and CA holidays in the prev quarter
Period.prev_quarter.holidays(:us, :ca)

# First up coming `FR` holiday
holiday = (Time.now..).to_period.holidays(:fr).first
# return the next holiday with same options as the original `.holidays` collection
holiday.next
# return the previous holiday with same options as the original `.holidays` collection
holiday.prev

⚠️ If you call a holidays related method without the gem holidays in your project
You will raise a RuntimeError

Period.this_month.holidays
#=> RuntimeError (The gem "holidays" is needed for this feature to work)

Planned updates & Idea

• ActiveRecord Serializer (maybe)
• Dedicated Exception for each possible error

Bug reports

If you discover any bugs, feel free to create an issue on GitHub
Please add as much information as possible to help us in fixing the potential bug
We also encourage you to help even more by forking and sending us a pull request

No issues will be addressed outside GitHub

Maintainer

• Myself (https://github.com/billaul)

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.