Converting timestamp to time ago in PHP e.g 1 day ago, 2 days ago…

Answer 1

$time_elapsed = timeAgo($time_ago); //The argument $time_ago is in timestamp (Y-m-d H:i:s)format.

//Function definition

function timeAgo($time_ago)
{
    $time_ago = strtotime($time_ago);
    $cur_time   = time();
    $time_elapsed   = $cur_time - $time_ago;
    $seconds    = $time_elapsed ;
    $minutes    = round($time_elapsed / 60 );
    $hours      = round($time_elapsed / 3600);
    $days       = round($time_elapsed / 86400 );
    $weeks      = round($time_elapsed / 604800);
    $months     = round($time_elapsed / 2600640 );
    $years      = round($time_elapsed / 31207680 );
    // Seconds
    if($seconds <= 60){
        return "just now";
    }
    //Minutes
    else if($minutes <=60){
        if($minutes==1){
            return "one minute ago";
        }
        else{
            return "$minutes minutes ago";
        }
    }
    //Hours
    else if($hours <=24){
        if($hours==1){
            return "an hour ago";
        }else{
            return "$hours hrs ago";
        }
    }
    //Days
    else if($days <= 7){
        if($days==1){
            return "yesterday";
        }else{
            return "$days days ago";
        }
    }
    //Weeks
    else if($weeks <= 4.3){
        if($weeks==1){
            return "a week ago";
        }else{
            return "$weeks weeks ago";
        }
    }
    //Months
    else if($months <=12){
        if($months==1){
            return "a month ago";
        }else{
            return "$months months ago";
        }
    }
    //Years
    else{
        if($years==1){
            return "one year ago";
        }else{
            return "$years years ago";
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

I found results like the following ugly:

1 years, 2 months, 0 days, 0 hours, 53 minutes and 1 seconds

Because of that I realized a function that respects plurals, removes empty values and optionally it is possible to shorten the output:

function since($timestamp, $level=6) {
    global $lang;
    $date = new DateTime();
    $date->setTimestamp($timestamp);
    $date = $date->diff(new DateTime());
    // build array
    $since = array_combine(array('year', 'month', 'day', 'hour', 'minute', 'second'), explode(',', $date->format('%y,%m,%d,%h,%i,%s')));
    // remove empty date values
    $since = array_filter($since);
    // output only the first x date values
    $since = array_slice($since, 0, $level);
    // build string
    $last_key = key(array_slice($since, -1, 1, true));
    $string = '';
    foreach ($since as $key => $val) {
        // separator
        if ($string) {
            $string .= $key != $last_key ? ', ' : ' ' . $lang['and'] . ' ';
        }
        // set plural
        $key .= $val > 1 ? 's' : '';
        // add date value
        $string .= $val . ' ' . $lang[ $key ];
    }
    return $string;
}

Looks much better:

1 year, 2 months, 53 minutes and 1 second

Optionally use $level = 2 to shorten it as follows:

1 year and 2 months

Remove the $lang part if you need it only in English or edit this translation to fit your needs:

$lang = array(
    'second' => 'Sekunde',
    'seconds' => 'Sekunden',
    'minute' => 'Minute',
    'minutes' => 'Minuten',
    'hour' => 'Stunde',
    'hours' => 'Stunden',
    'day' => 'Tag',
    'days' => 'Tage',
    'month' => 'Monat',
    'months' => 'Monate',
    'year' => 'Jahr',
    'years' => 'Jahre',
    'and' => 'und',
);

Answer 3

Just to throw in another option...

Whilst I prefer the DateTime method posting here, I didn't like the fact it displayed 0 years etc.

/* 
 * Returns a string stating how long ago this happened
 */

private function timeElapsedString($ptime){
    $diff = time() - $ptime;
    $calc_times = array();
    $timeleft   = array();

    // Prepare array, depending on the output we want to get.
    $calc_times[] = array('Year',   'Years',   31557600);
    $calc_times[] = array('Month',  'Months',  2592000);
    $calc_times[] = array('Day',    'Days',    86400);
    $calc_times[] = array('Hour',   'Hours',   3600);
    $calc_times[] = array('Minute', 'Minutes', 60);
    $calc_times[] = array('Second', 'Seconds', 1);

    foreach ($calc_times AS $timedata){
        list($time_sing, $time_plur, $offset) = $timedata;

        if ($diff >= $offset){
            $left = floor($diff / $offset);
            $diff -= ($left * $offset);
            $timeleft[] = "{$left} " . ($left == 1 ? $time_sing : $time_plur);
        }
    }

    return $timeleft ? (time() > $ptime ? null : '-') . implode(' ', $timeleft) : 0;
}

Answer 4

Here is my solution please check and modify according your requirements

function getHowLongAgo($date, $display = array('Year', 'Month', 'Day', 'Hour', 'Minute', 'Second'), $ago = '') {
        date_default_timezone_set('Australia/Sydney');
        $timestamp = strtotime($date);
        $timestamp = (int) $timestamp;
        $current_time = time();
        $diff = $current_time - $timestamp;

        //intervals in seconds
        $intervals = array(
            'year' => 31556926, 'month' => 2629744, 'week' => 604800, 'day' => 86400, 'hour' => 3600, 'minute' => 60
        );

        //now we just find the difference
        if ($diff == 0) {
            return ' Just now ';
        }

        if ($diff < 60) {
            return $diff == 1 ? $diff . ' second ago ' : $diff . ' seconds ago ';
        }

        if ($diff >= 60 && $diff < $intervals['hour']) {
            $diff = floor($diff / $intervals['minute']);
            return $diff == 1 ? $diff . ' minute ago ' : $diff . ' minutes ago ';
        }

        if ($diff >= $intervals['hour'] && $diff < $intervals['day']) {
            $diff = floor($diff / $intervals['hour']);
            return $diff == 1 ? $diff . ' hour ago ' : $diff . ' hours ago ';
        }

        if ($diff >= $intervals['day'] && $diff < $intervals['week']) {
            $diff = floor($diff / $intervals['day']);
            return $diff == 1 ? $diff . ' day ago ' : $diff . ' days ago ';
        }

        if ($diff >= $intervals['week'] && $diff < $intervals['month']) {
            $diff = floor($diff / $intervals['week']);
            return $diff == 1 ? $diff . ' week ago ' : $diff . ' weeks ago ';
        }

        if ($diff >= $intervals['month'] && $diff < $intervals['year']) {
            $diff = floor($diff / $intervals['month']);
            return $diff == 1 ? $diff . ' month ago ' : $diff . ' months ago ';
        }

        if ($diff >= $intervals['year']) {
            $diff = floor($diff / $intervals['year']);
            return $diff == 1 ? $diff . ' year ago ' : $diff . ' years ago ';
        }
    }

Thanks

Answer 5

I don't know why nobody mention Carbon yet.

https://github.com/briannesbitt/Carbon

This is actually an extension to php dateTime (which was already used here) and it has: diffForHumans method. So all you need to do is:

$dt = Carbon::parse('2012-9-5 23:26:11.123789');
echo $dt->diffForHumans();

more examples: http://carbon.nesbot.com/docs/#api-humandiff

Pros of this solution:

• it works for future dates and will return something like in 2 months etc.
• you can use localization to get other languages and the pluralization works fine
• if you will start using Carbon for other things working with dates will be as easy as never.

Answer 6

Many solutions here did not account for rounding. For example:

Event happened at 3pm two days ago. If you are checking at 2pm, it will show one day ago. If you are checking at 4pm it will show two days ago.

If you are working with unix time, this helps:

// how long since event has passed in seconds
$secs = time() - $time_ago;

// how many seconds in a day
$sec_per_day = 60*60*24;

// days elapsed
$days_elapsed = floor($secs / $sec_per_day);

// how many seconds passed today
$today_seconds = date('G')*3600 + date('i') * 60 + date('s');

// how many seconds passed in the final day calculation
$remain_seconds = $secs % $sec_per_day;

if($today_seconds < $remain_seconds)
{
    $days_elapsed++;
}

echo 'The event was '.$days_ago.' days ago.';

It is not perfect if you are worried about leap seconds and daylight savings time.