PHP How to find the time elapsed since a date time

Question

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• Converting timestamp to time ago in PHP e.g 1 day ago, 2 days ago… 30 answers

How to find the time elapsed since a date time stamp like 2010-04-28 17:25:43, final out put text should be like xx Minutes Ago/xx Days Ago

Answer 1

You can get a function for this directly form WordPress core files take a look here

http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/3.6/wp-includes/formatting.php#L2121

function human_time_diff( $from, $to = '' ) {
    if ( empty( $to ) )
        $to = time();

    $diff = (int) abs( $to - $from );

    if ( $diff < HOUR_IN_SECONDS ) {
        $mins = round( $diff / MINUTE_IN_SECONDS );
        if ( $mins <= 1 )
            $mins = 1;
        /* translators: min=minute */
        $since = sprintf( _n( '%s min', '%s mins', $mins ), $mins );
    } elseif ( $diff < DAY_IN_SECONDS && $diff >= HOUR_IN_SECONDS ) {
        $hours = round( $diff / HOUR_IN_SECONDS );
        if ( $hours <= 1 )
            $hours = 1;
        $since = sprintf( _n( '%s hour', '%s hours', $hours ), $hours );
    } elseif ( $diff < WEEK_IN_SECONDS && $diff >= DAY_IN_SECONDS ) {
        $days = round( $diff / DAY_IN_SECONDS );
        if ( $days <= 1 )
            $days = 1;
        $since = sprintf( _n( '%s day', '%s days', $days ), $days );
    } elseif ( $diff < 30 * DAY_IN_SECONDS && $diff >= WEEK_IN_SECONDS ) {
        $weeks = round( $diff / WEEK_IN_SECONDS );
        if ( $weeks <= 1 )
            $weeks = 1;
        $since = sprintf( _n( '%s week', '%s weeks', $weeks ), $weeks );
    } elseif ( $diff < YEAR_IN_SECONDS && $diff >= 30 * DAY_IN_SECONDS ) {
        $months = round( $diff / ( 30 * DAY_IN_SECONDS ) );
        if ( $months <= 1 )
            $months = 1;
        $since = sprintf( _n( '%s month', '%s months', $months ), $months );
    } elseif ( $diff >= YEAR_IN_SECONDS ) {
        $years = round( $diff / YEAR_IN_SECONDS );
        if ( $years <= 1 )
            $years = 1;
        $since = sprintf( _n( '%s year', '%s years', $years ), $years );
    }

    return $since;
}

Answer 2

Had to do this recently - hope this helps someone. It doesn't cater for every possibility, but met my needs for a project.

https://github.com/duncanheron/twitter_date_format

https://github.com/duncanheron/twitter_date_format/blob/master/twitter_date_format.php

Answer 3

To improve upon @arnorhs answer I've added in the ability to have a more precise result so if you wanted years, months, days & hours for instance since the user joined.

I've added a new parameter to allow you to specify the number of points of precision you wish to have returned.

function get_friendly_time_ago($distant_timestamp, $max_units = 3) {
    $i = 0;
    $time = time() - $distant_timestamp; // to get the time since that moment
    $tokens = [
        31536000 => 'year',
        2592000 => 'month',
        604800 => 'week',
        86400 => 'day',
        3600 => 'hour',
        60 => 'minute',
        1 => 'second'
    ];

    $responses = [];
    while ($i < $max_units && $time > 0) {
        foreach ($tokens as $unit => $text) {
            if ($time < $unit) {
                continue;
            }
            $i++;
            $numberOfUnits = floor($time / $unit);

            $responses[] = $numberOfUnits . ' ' . $text . (($numberOfUnits > 1) ? 's' : '');
            $time -= ($unit * $numberOfUnits);
            break;
        }
    }

    if (!empty($responses)) {
        return implode(', ', $responses) . ' ago';
    }

    return 'Just now';
}

Answer 4

If you use the php Datetime class you could use:

function time_ago(Datetime $date) {
  $time_ago = '';

  $diff = $date->diff(new Datetime('now'));


  if (($t = $diff->format("%m")) > 0)
    $time_ago = $t . ' months';
  else if (($t = $diff->format("%d")) > 0)
    $time_ago = $t . ' days';
  else if (($t = $diff->format("%H")) > 0)
    $time_ago = $t . ' hours';
  else
    $time_ago = 'minutes';

  return $time_ago . ' ago (' . $date->format('M j, Y') . ')';
}

Answer 5

One option that'll work with any version of PHP is to do what's already been suggested, which is something like this:

$eventTime = '2010-04-28 17:25:43';
$age = time() - strtotime($eventTime);

That will give you the age in seconds. From there, you can display it however you wish.

One problem with this approach, however, is that it won't take into account time shifts causes by DST. If that's not a concern, then go for it. Otherwise, you'll probably want to use the diff() method in the DateTime class. Unfortunately, this is only an option if you're on at least PHP 5.3.

Answer 6

Most of the answers seem focused around converting the date from a string to time. It seems you're mostly thinking about getting the date into the '5 days ago' format, etc.. right?

This is how I'd go about doing that:

$time = strtotime('2010-04-28 17:25:43');

echo 'event happened '.humanTiming($time).' ago';

function humanTiming ($time)
{

    $time = time() - $time; // to get the time since that moment
    $time = ($time<1)? 1 : $time;
    $tokens = array (
        31536000 => 'year',
        2592000 => 'month',
        604800 => 'week',
        86400 => 'day',
        3600 => 'hour',
        60 => 'minute',
        1 => 'second'
    );

    foreach ($tokens as $unit => $text) {
        if ($time < $unit) continue;
        $numberOfUnits = floor($time / $unit);
        return $numberOfUnits.' '.$text.(($numberOfUnits>1)?'s':'');
    }

}

I haven't tested that, but it should work.

The result would look like

event happened 4 days ago

or

event happened 1 minute ago

cheers