Programming Ideas, Logics, Tips and Tricks

PHP time ago calculation

Posted on 01. Feb, 2008 by Sajith M.R in Downloads, php, php source code

The new web 2.0 displays time and date not in old style manner like 12.30 pm Jan 200 7. The new generation need relative time like 2 hours ago, 6 months ago, 4 years ago, very old etc. So if you save the timestamp of a particular content creation in database we can simply show this ‘ago time calculation’ using the following algorithm.

//$datefrom is the timestamp for the content , and you can leave the $dateto value to see the current delay

function TimeAgo($datefrom,$dateto=-1)
{
// Defaults and assume if 0 is passed in that
// its an error rather than the epoch

if($datefrom<=0) { return "A long time ago"; }
if($dateto==-1) { $dateto = time(); }

// Calculate the difference in seconds betweeen
// the two timestamps

$difference = $dateto - $datefrom;

// If difference is less than 60 seconds,
// seconds is a good interval of choice

if($difference < 60)
{
$interval = "s";
}

// If difference is between 60 seconds and
// 60 minutes, minutes is a good interval
elseif($difference >= 60 && $difference<60*60)
{
$interval = "n";
}

// If difference is between 1 hour and 24 hours
// hours is a good interval
elseif($difference >= 60*60 && $difference<60*60*24)
{
$interval = "h";
}

// If difference is between 1 day and 7 days
// days is a good interval
elseif($difference >= 60*60*24 && $difference<60*60*24*7)
{
$interval = "d";
}

// If difference is between 1 week and 30 days
// weeks is a good interval
elseif($difference >= 60*60*24*7 && $difference <
60*60*24*30)
{
$interval = "ww";
}

// If difference is between 30 days and 365 days
// months is a good interval, again, the same thing
// applies, if the 29th February happens to exist
// between your 2 dates, the function will return
// the 'incorrect' value for a day
elseif($difference >= 60*60*24*30 && $difference <
60*60*24*365)
{
$interval = "m";
}

// If difference is greater than or equal to 365
// days, return year. This will be incorrect if
// for example, you call the function on the 28th April
// 2008 passing in 29th April 2007. It will return
// 1 year ago when in actual fact (yawn!) not quite
// a year has gone by
elseif($difference >= 60*60*24*365)
{
$interval = "y";
}

// Based on the interval, determine the
// number of units between the two dates
// From this point on, you would be hard
// pushed telling the difference between
// this function and DateDiff. If the $datediff
// returned is 1, be sure to return the singular
// of the unit, e.g. 'day' rather 'days'

switch($interval)
{
case "m":
$months_difference = floor($difference / 60 / 60 / 24 /
29);
while (mktime(date("H", $datefrom), date("i", $datefrom),
date("s", $datefrom), date("n", $datefrom)+($months_difference),
date("j", $dateto), date("Y", $datefrom)) < $dateto)
{
$months_difference++;
}
$datediff = $months_difference;

// We need this in here because it is possible
// to have an 'm' interval and a months
// difference of 12 because we are using 29 days
// in a month

if($datediff==12)
{
$datediff--;
}

$res = ($datediff==1) ? "$datediff month ago" : "$datediff
months ago";
break;

case "y":
$datediff = floor($difference / 60 / 60 / 24 / 365);
$res = ($datediff==1) ? "$datediff year ago" : "$datediff
years ago";
break;

case "d":
$datediff = floor($difference / 60 / 60 / 24);
$res = ($datediff==1) ? "$datediff day ago" : "$datediff
days ago";
break;

case "ww":
$datediff = floor($difference / 60 / 60 / 24 / 7);
$res = ($datediff==1) ? "$datediff week ago" : "$datediff
weeks ago";
break;

case "h":
$datediff = floor($difference / 60 / 60);
$res = ($datediff==1) ? "$datediff hour ago" : "$datediff
hours ago";
break;

case "n":
$datediff = floor($difference / 60);
$res = ($datediff==1) ? "$datediff minute ago" :
"$datediff minutes ago";
break;

case "s":
$datediff = $difference;
$res = ($datediff==1) ? "$datediff second ago" :
"$datediff seconds ago";
break;
}
return $res;
}

Tags: calculation, featured, time, time ago