Best way to convert DateTime to “n Hours Ago” in SQL

Question

I wrote a SQL function to convert a datetime value in SQL to a friendlier \"n Hours Ago\" or \"n Days Ago\" etc type of message. And I was wondering if there was a better wa

Answer 1

In Oracle:

select
  CC.MOD_DATETIME,
  'Last modified ' ||
  case when (sysdate - cc.mod_datetime) < 1
       then round((sysdate - CC.MOD_DATETIME)*24) || ' hours ago'
       when (sysdate - CC.MOD_DATETIME) between 1 and 7
       then round(sysdate-CC.MOD_DATETIME) || ' days ago'
       when (sysdate - CC.MOD_DATETIME) between 8 and 365
       then round((sysdate - CC.MOD_DATETIME) / 7) || ' weeks ago'
       when (sysdate - CC.MOD_DATETIME) > 365   
       then round((sysdate - CC.MOD_DATETIME) / 365) || ' years ago'
       end
from 
  customer_catalog CC