Calculate relative time in C#

Question

Given a specific DateTime value, how do I display relative time, like:

• 2 hours ago
• 3 days ago
• a month ago

Answer 1

jquery.timeago plugin

Jeff, because Stack Overflow uses jQuery extensively, I recommend the jquery.timeago plugin.

Benefits:

• Avoid timestamps dated "1 minute ago" even though the page was opened 10 minutes ago; timeago refreshes automatically.
• You can take full advantage of page and/or fragment caching in your web applications, because the timestamps aren't calculated on the server.
• You get to use microformats like the cool kids.

Just attach it to your timestamps on DOM ready:

jQuery(document).ready(function() {
    jQuery('abbr.timeago').timeago();
});

This will turn all abbr elements with a class of timeago and an ISO 8601 timestamp in the title:

July 17, 2008

into something like this:

4 months ago

which yields: 4 months ago. As time passes, the timestamps will automatically update.

Disclaimer: I wrote this plugin, so I'm biased.