prettyunits

The prettyunits package formats quantities in human readable form. Currently time units and information (i.e. bytes) are supported.

Installation

You can install the package from CRAN:

install.packages("prettyunits")

library(prettyunits)
library(magrittr)

Bytes

pretty_bytes formats number of bytes in a human readable way:

pretty_bytes(1337)

##> [1] "1.34 kB"

pretty_bytes(133337)

##> [1] "133.34 kB"

pretty_bytes(13333337)

##> [1] "13.33 MB"

pretty_bytes(1333333337)

##> [1] "1.33 GB"

pretty_bytes(133333333337)

##> [1] "133.33 GB"

Here is a simple function that emulates the Unix ls command, with nicely formatted file sizes:

uls <- function(path = ".") {
  files <- dir(path)
  info <- files %>%
    lapply(file.info) %>%
    do.call(what = rbind)
  info$size <- pretty_bytes(info$size)
  df <- data.frame(d = ifelse(info$isdir, "d", " "),
    mode = as.character(info$mode), user = info$uname, group = info$grname,
    size = ifelse(info$isdir, "", info$size), modified = info$mtime, name = files)
  print(df, row.names = FALSE)
}
uls()

##>  d mode        user group     size            modified       name
##>     644 gaborcsardi staff 440.00 B 2019-03-25 10:25:08    NEWS.md
##>     644 gaborcsardi staff  4.65 kB 2017-12-15 11:00:16  README.md
##>     644 gaborcsardi staff  2.95 kB 2019-03-27 09:58:43 README.Rmd

Time intervals

pretty_ms formats a time interval given in milliseconds. pretty_sec does the same for seconds, and pretty_dt for difftime objects. The optional compact argument turns on a compact, approximate format.

pretty_ms(c(1337, 13370, 133700, 1337000, 1337000000))

##> [1] "1.3s"            "13.4s"           "2m 13.7s"        "22m 17s"        
##> [5] "15d 11h 23m 20s"

pretty_ms(c(1337, 13370, 133700, 1337000, 1337000000),
  compact = TRUE)

##> [1] "~1.3s"  "~13.4s" "~2m"    "~22m"   "~15d"

pretty_sec(c(1337, 13370, 133700, 1337000, 13370000))

##> [1] "22m 17s"          "3h 42m 50s"       "1d 13h 8m 20s"   
##> [4] "15d 11h 23m 20s"  "154d 17h 53m 20s"

pretty_sec(c(1337, 13370, 133700, 1337000, 13370000),
  compact = TRUE)

##> [1] "~22m"  "~3h"   "~1d"   "~15d"  "~154d"

Vague time intervals

vague_dt and time_ago formats time intervals using a vague format, omitting smaller units. They both have three formats: default, short and terse. vague_dt takes a difftime object, and time_ago works relatively to the specified date.

vague_dt(format = "short", as.difftime(30, units = "secs"))

##> [1] "<1 min"

vague_dt(format = "short", as.difftime(14, units = "mins"))

##> [1] "14 min"

vague_dt(format = "short", as.difftime(5, units = "hours"))

##> [1] "5 hours"

vague_dt(format = "short", as.difftime(25, units = "hours"))

##> [1] "1 day"

vague_dt(format = "short", as.difftime(5, units = "days"))

##> [1] "5 day"

now <- Sys.time()
time_ago(now)

##> [1] "moments ago"

time_ago(now - as.difftime(30, units = "secs"))

##> [1] "less than a minute ago"

time_ago(now - as.difftime(14, units = "mins"))

##> [1] "14 minutes ago"

time_ago(now - as.difftime(5, units = "hours"))

##> [1] "5 hours ago"

time_ago(now - as.difftime(25, units = "hours"))

##> [1] "a day ago"