Code Examples -> PHP function for displaying relative dates in a human readable format

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PHP Code Examples

Title :	PHP function for displaying relative dates in a human readable format
Categories :	PHP, Date Time	John McClumpha
Date :	Mar 03rd 2008
Grade :	1 of 5 (graded 2 times)
Viewed :	7120
File :	4769.php
Images :	No Images for this code example.

Search :	More code by John McClumpha
Action :	Grade This Code Example
Tools :	My Examples List

Code

Here's a handy PHP function I use for comparing times and displaying the difference in a human-readable format.

The function itself returns the nearest approximate time based on the largest value from: decades, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes or seconds

<?php
function RelativeTime($timestamp){
$difference = time() - $timestamp;
$periods = array("sec", "min", "hour", "day", "week", "month", "years", "decade");
$lengths = array("60","60","24","7","4.35","12","10");

if ($difference > 0) { // this was in the past
$ending = "ago";
} else { // this was in the future
$difference = -$difference;
$ending = "to go";
}
for($j = 0; $difference >= $lengths[$j]; $j++) $difference /= $lengths[$j];
$difference = round($difference);
if($difference != 1) $periods[$j].= "s";
$text = "$difference $periods[$j] $ending";
return $text;
}
?>

Usage Example

<?php
echo RelativeTime($timestamp);
?>

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