[RESOLVED] Time code meaning

allthatcash

Can someone translate the following for me: What is going on here?

function getAGO($time)
{
$ago=time()-$time;
if($ago<60) $ago=$ago." sec";
elseif($ago<3600) $ago=(int)($ago/60)." min";
elseif($ago<3600*24) $ago=(int)($ago/3600)." hrs ".(int)(($ago%3600)/60)." min";
else $ago=date("M d, Y",$time);
return $ago;
}

function getDateTime($time)
{
if(date("d-m-Y",$time)==date("d-m-Y")) return "Today, ".date("G:i",$time);
elseif(date("d-m-Y",$time+243600)==date("d-m-Y")) return "Yesterday, ".date("G:i",$time);
elseif(date("d-m-Y",$time-243600)==date("d-m-Y")) return "Tomorrow, ".date("G:i",$time);
else return date("M d, G:i",$time);

bradgrafelman

Though I haven't verified that these functions actually work, here's what it looks like they are doing.

The first function tells you how long ago a Unix timestamp was (converting the number of seconds into groups as large as hours).

The second takes a Unix timestamp and converts it to either: 1) a plain "today/yesterday/tomorrow" reference, along with the hour and minute, or b) a "Month Day, Hour:Minute" representation.

If you want to decode these functions yourself, why not just look up the functions you didn't know, e.g. [man]time()[/man], [man]date/man, etc. ?

EDIT: Also, when posting PHP code, please use the board's [PHP][/PHP] bbcode tags - they make the code much, much easier to read (as well as aiding the diagnosis of syntax errors). You should edit your post now and add these bbcode tags to help others in reading/analyzing your code.

allthatcash

Thanks! I did look up these functions but I kept having more questions. Like, what's a unix time stamp? I'll look it up....but it's stuff like that, that kept sending me further down the hole. Things seem more complicated than they should be...like what cant time() just put the current time instead of some 10 digit number....Thanks again, I appreciate your time.

leatherback

Unix timestamp is a way of storing time in a integer, representing the no of seconds since (I think) jan 1 1970.
This is an more effective way of storing time than in a atrsing: it takes less space. Furthermore: it is not dependant on local settings:
In one country today might be 28/2/2007, whereas somewhere else one might write 2/28/2007 etc.

bradgrafelman

leatherback wrote:
This is an more effective way of storing time than in a atrsing

Many people would probably disagree with you on this point. Sure, from a PHP programmer's standpoint it's great - a lot of the PHP functions work with Unix timestamps. But what happens after 01/18/2038 09:14:07 PM ? 32-bit systems all over the world using Unix timestamps will puke - 32-bit systems can't deal with integers higher than 2147483647.

Now, if you stored the date in a globally accepted format, such as "2038-01-17 21:14:07" (e.g. MySQL's DATETIME column type) then you wouldn't have this same limitation.