ms: Tiny Millisecond Module by Guillermo Rauch

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This code snippet is now available with a GitHub repository: https://github.com/guille/ms.js

I wanted to pass along a simple but useful module that was posted as a Gist to GitHub by Guillermo Rauch.  This simple module, available via NPM as ms, provides a simple function for turning a human-readable string into milliseconds.

// Created by milliseconds

/**

# ms.js

No more painful `setTimeout(fn, 60 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 * Infinity * NaN * '☃')`.

    ms('2d')      // 172800000
    ms('1.5h')    // 5400000
    ms('1h')      // 3600000
    ms('1m')      // 60000
    ms('5s')      // 5000
    ms('500ms')   // 500
    ms('100')     // 100
    ms(100)       // 100

**/

(function (g) {
  var r = /(\d*.?\d+)([mshd]+)/
    , _ = {}

  _.ms = 1;
  _.s = 1000;
  _.m = _.s * 60;
  _.h = _.m * 60;
  _.d = _.h * 24;

  function ms (s) {
    if (s == Number(s)) return Number(s);
    r.exec(s.toLowerCase());
    return RegExp.$1 * _[RegExp.$2];
  }

  g.top ? g.ms = ms : module.exports = ms;
})(this);

A very nice little gem by Guiller.  Keep this function handy to save yourself from math expressions for time calculations!

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Discussion

  1. Olmo

    Also note this has been accepted in MooTools More: https://github.com/mootools/mootools-more/pull/1098/files

  2. Ssss

    Whats with th ‘☃’ char?

    Have I missd something? xD

  3. Great one! Will definitely use this in my projects. Thanks a lot David!

  4. Hi David,

    First of all, nice site, I’ve been following you for the past 2 years or so.

    Yesterday Guille created a repo so that I could fork the code and make a pull request.
    Guille merged today my pull request because it’s a better rewrite overall:
    – Smaller footprint
    – 2.8x faster
    – Passes all unit tests

    The repo is here: https://github.com/guille/ms.js

    Could you update the article? It’d be great for everyone!

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