PHP: producing relative date/time from timestamps

This function gives you "1 hour ago" or "Tomorrow" like results between 'now' and 'specific timestamp'.

function time2str($ts)
{
    if(!ctype_digit($ts))
        $ts = strtotime($ts);

    $diff = time() - $ts;
    if($diff == 0)
        return 'now';
    elseif($diff > 0)
    {
        $day_diff = floor($diff / 86400);
        if($day_diff == 0)
        {
            if($diff < 60) return 'just now';
            if($diff < 120) return '1 minute ago';
            if($diff < 3600) return floor($diff / 60) . ' minutes ago';
            if($diff < 7200) return '1 hour ago';
            if($diff < 86400) return floor($diff / 3600) . ' hours ago';
        }
        if($day_diff == 1) return 'Yesterday';
        if($day_diff < 7) return $day_diff . ' days ago';
        if($day_diff < 31) return ceil($day_diff / 7) . ' weeks ago';
        if($day_diff < 60) return 'last month';
        return date('F Y', $ts);
    }
    else
    {
        $diff = abs($diff);
        $day_diff = floor($diff / 86400);
        if($day_diff == 0)
        {
            if($diff < 120) return 'in a minute';
            if($diff < 3600) return 'in ' . floor($diff / 60) . ' minutes';
            if($diff < 7200) return 'in an hour';
            if($diff < 86400) return 'in ' . floor($diff / 3600) . ' hours';
        }
        if($day_diff == 1) return 'Tomorrow';
        if($day_diff < 4) return date('l', $ts);
        if($day_diff < 7 + (7 - date('w'))) return 'next week';
        if(ceil($day_diff / 7) < 4) return 'in ' . ceil($day_diff / 7) . ' weeks';
        if(date('n', $ts) == date('n') + 1) return 'next month';
        return date('F Y', $ts);
    }
}

function relativeTime($time) {

    $d[0] = array(1,"second");
    $d[1] = array(60,"minute");
    $d[2] = array(3600,"hour");
    $d[3] = array(86400,"day");
    $d[4] = array(604800,"week");
    $d[5] = array(2592000,"month");
    $d[6] = array(31104000,"year");

    $w = array();

    $return = "";
    $now = time();
    $diff = ($now-$time);
    $secondsLeft = $diff;

    for($i=6;$i>-1;$i--)
    {
         $w[$i] = intval($secondsLeft/$d[$i][0]);
         $secondsLeft -= ($w[$i]*$d[$i][0]);
         if($w[$i]!=0)
         {
            $return.= abs($w[$i]) . " " . $d[$i][1] . (($w[$i]>1)?'s':'') ." ";
         }

    }

    $return .= ($diff>0)?"ago":"left";
    return $return;
}

Usage:

echo relativeTime((time()-256));
4 minutes 16 seconds ago

Here is what I've written. Displays a past date relative to today's date.

/**
 * @param $date integer of unixtimestamp format, not actual date type
 * @return string
 */
function zdateRelative($date)
{
    $now = time();
    $diff = $now - $date;

    if ($diff < 60){
        return sprintf($diff > 1 ? '%s seconds ago' : 'a second ago', $diff);
    }

    $diff = floor($diff/60);

    if ($diff < 60){
        return sprintf($diff > 1 ? '%s minutes ago' : 'one minute ago', $diff);
    }

    $diff = floor($diff/60);

    if ($diff < 24){
        return sprintf($diff > 1 ? '%s hours ago' : 'an hour ago', $diff);
    }

    $diff = floor($diff/24);

    if ($diff < 7){
        return sprintf($diff > 1 ? '%s days ago' : 'yesterday', $diff);
    }

    if ($diff < 30)
    {
        $diff = floor($diff / 7);

        return sprintf($diff > 1 ? '%s weeks ago' : 'one week ago', $diff);
    }

    $diff = floor($diff/30);

    if ($diff < 12){
        return sprintf($diff > 1 ? '%s months ago' : 'last month', $diff);
    }

    $diff = date('Y', $now) - date('Y', $date);

    return sprintf($diff > 1 ? '%s years ago' : 'last year', $diff);
}

I love the relativeTime function by xdebug. Problem is I needed it to have some granularity.

In other words stop at seconds or minutes if I decide. So now,

echo fTime(strtotime('-23 hours 5 minutes 55 seconds'),0); 

would show,

23 hours, 5 minutes ago

Instead of

23 hours, 5 minutes, 55 seconds ago

I also wanted it to NOT go lower in the array if it reached one of the higher time amounts. So if it shows years, I only want to show years and months. So now,

echo fTime(strtotime('-1 year 2 months 3 weeks 4 days 16 hours 15 minutes 22 seconds'),0); 

Would show

1 year, 2 months ago

Instead of

1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks, 4 days, 16 hours, 15 minutes, 22 seconds ago

The following code change did what I needed. Props go to xdebug first of course. Hopefully someone else might find it useful:

function fTime($time, $gran=-1) {

    $d[0] = array(1,"second");
    $d[1] = array(60,"minute");
    $d[2] = array(3600,"hour");
    $d[3] = array(86400,"day");
    $d[4] = array(604800,"week");
    $d[5] = array(2592000,"month");
    $d[6] = array(31104000,"year");

    $w = array();

    $return = "";
    $now = time();
    $diff = ($now-$time);
    $secondsLeft = $diff;
    $stopat = 0;
    for($i=6;$i>$gran;$i--)
    {
         $w[$i] = intval($secondsLeft/$d[$i][0]);
         $secondsLeft -= ($w[$i]*$d[$i][0]);
         if($w[$i]!=0)
         {
            $return.= abs($w[$i]) . " " . $d[$i][1] . (($w[$i]>1)?'s':'') ." ";
             switch ($i) {
                case 6: // shows years and months
                    if ($stopat==0) { $stopat=5; }
                    break;
                case 5: // shows months and weeks
                    if ($stopat==0) { $stopat=4; }
                    break;
                case 4: // shows weeks and days
                    if ($stopat==0) { $stopat=3; }
                    break;
                case 3: // shows days and hours
                    if ($stopat==0) { $stopat=2; }
                    break;
                case 2: // shows hours and minutes
                    if ($stopat==0) { $stopat=1; }
                    break;
                case 1: // shows minutes and seconds if granularity is not set higher
                    break;
             }
             if ($i===$stopat) { break 0; }
         }
    }

    $return .= ($diff>0)?"ago":"left";
    return $return;
}

Marcus