Get normal user readable date/time with php

Question

I know this question has been asked 2-3 times before, and I am using a function which I found in one of the answers(check it here) from those questions, but it doesnt seem to be working fine for me, i asked there in comments but didnt get any reply, so I am opening a new question here. following is the code to get plain text date/time from a datetime(mysql type).

function getElapsedTime($time_stamp)
{
    $ts = convert_datetime($time_stamp);
    $time_stamp = $ts;
    $time_difference = strtotime('now') - $time_stamp;

    if ($time_difference >= 60 * 60 * 24 * 365.242199)
    {
        return get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, 60 * 60 * 24 * 365.242199, 'year');
    }
    elseif ($time_difference >= 60 * 60 * 24 * 30.4368499)
    {
       return get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, 60 * 60 * 24 * 30.4368499, 'month');
    }
    elseif ($time_difference >= 60 * 60 * 24 * 7)
    {
        return get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, 60 * 60 * 24 * 7, 'week');
    }
    elseif ($time_difference >= 60 * 60 * 24)
    {
        return get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, 60 * 60 * 24, 'day');
    }
    elseif ($time_difference >= 60 * 60)
    {
        return get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, 60 * 60, 'hour');
    }
    elseif($time_difference <= 60)
    {
        return get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, 60, 'minute');
    }
}

function get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, $divisor, $time_unit)
{
    $time_difference = strtotime("now") - $time_stamp;
    $time_units      = floor($time_difference / $divisor);

    settype($time_units, 'string');

    if ($time_units === '0')
    {
        return 'less than 1 ' . $time_unit . ' ago';
    }
    elseif ($time_units === '1')
    {
        return '1 ' . $time_unit . ' ago';
    }
    else
    {
       return $time_units . ' ' . $time_unit . 's ago';
    }
}

function convert_datetime($str) { 

   list($date, $time) = explode(' ', $str); 
   list($year, $month, $day) = explode('-', $date); 
   list($hour, $minute, $second) = explode(':', $time); 

   $timestamp = mktime($hour, $minute, $second, $month, $day, $year); 

   return $timestamp; 
}  

I have added one more function convert_datetime() which turns mysql datetime date into timestamp, as I thought the function getElapsedTime() is expecting timestamp, because when I was passing normal datetime date(mysql format), it wasn't working. So now, I am passing mysql datetime to getElapsedTime() and converting it into timestamp using convert_datetime() function and using it to get string.

But when the date is expected to return for "minute" or "second", its returning in negative value. eg its returning "-182 minutes ago" for "2013-05-23 15:59:58"..

Anybody knows how to get it done?

Answer 1

This is much simpler using PHP's DateTime classes:-

function time_ago($time_stamp)
{
    $time = new DateTime($time_stamp);
    $now = new DateTime();
    $diff = $now->diff($time);

    return $diff->format("%h hours, %i minutes ago");
}

$diff is an instance of DateInterval.

If you wish you can specify the format you are receiving in $time_stamp by using:-

$time = DateTime::createFromFormat('Your format here');

Obviously you can adjust the output format to suit.

Answer 2

// try this function

function time_ago($ptime) {
  $ptime = strtotime($ptime);
  if ($ptime) {
    $etime = time() - $ptime;
    if ($etime < 1)
      return 'few seconds';
    $a = array(
        12 * 30 * 24 * 60 * 60 => 'year',
        30 * 24 * 60 * 60 => 'month',
        24 * 60 * 60 => 'day',
        60 * 60 => 'hour',
        60 => 'minute',
        1 => 'second'
    );
    foreach ($a as $secs => $str) {
      $d = $etime / $secs;
      if ($d >= 1) {
        $r = round($d);
        return $r . ' ' . $str . ($r > 1 ? 's' : '') . '';
      }
    }
  }
  return '0';
}

// usage

echo time_ago('2013-05-23 15:59:58');

echo time_ago(date('Y:m:d H:i:s'));

// Output

43 minutes

few seconds