Tough there are yet many correct answers and an accepted one, if you want a more handmade and systematized way to do this, I suggest something like this:
/**
* Factors for converting seconds in minutes, minutes in hours, etc.
*/
private static int[] FACTORS = new int[] {
60, 60, 24, 7
};
/**
* Names of each time unit.
* The length of this array needs to be FACTORS.length + 1.
* The last one is the name of the remainder after
* obtaining each component.
*/
private static String[] NAMES = new String[] {
"second", "minute", "hour", "day", "week"
};
/**
* Checks if quantity is 1 in order to use or not the plural.
*/
private static String quantityToString(int quantity, String name) {
if (quantity == 1) {
return String.format("%d %s", quantity, name);
}
return String.format("%d %ss", quantity, name);
}
/**
* The seconds to String method.
*/
private static String secondsToString(int seconds) {
List<String> components = new ArrayList<>();
/**
* Obtains each component and stores only if is not 0.
*/
for (int i = 0; i < FACTORS.length; i++) {
int component = seconds % FACTORS[i];
seconds /= FACTORS[i];
if (component != 0) {
components.add(quantityToString(component, NAMES[i]));
}
}
/**
* The remainder is the last component.
*/
if (seconds != 0) {
components.add(quantityToString(seconds, NAMES[FACTORS.length]));
}
/**
* We have the non-0 components in reversed order.
* This could be extracted to another method.
*/
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = components.size() - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
if (i == 0 && components.size() > 1) {
builder.append(" and ");
} else if (builder.length() > 0) {
builder.append(", ");
}
builder.append(components.get(i));
}
return builder.toString();
}
The result is as following:
System.out.println(secondsToString(5_000_000)); // 8 weeks, 1 day, 20 hours, 53 minutes and 20 seconds
System.out.println(secondsToString(500_000)); // 5 days, 18 hours, 53 minutes and 20 seconds
System.out.println(secondsToString(60*60*24)); // 1 day
System.out.println(secondsToString(2*60*60*24 + 3*60)); // 2 days and 3 minutes
System.out.println(secondsToString(60*60*24 + 3 * 60 * 60 + 53)); // 1 day, 3 hours and 53 seconds
