[RESOLVED] My "how long ago" time difference problem.

[Tim_Silva]

Hi,

I've been trying very hard to insert a "how long ago" type of timestamp in my code. I've tried many different functions found in differnt sites, particularly at php.net.

Since I am getting some results with the functions (but not not what I expected) I have reason to believe the problem are not the functions but the way I am using them.

The one below, for example, was supposed to give me something like: 7 hours, 15 minutes, 4 seconds ago. But instead I am getting: -20069521402986 seconds ago.

I have the MySQL date collumn set as TIMESTAMP.

Any help would be appreciated.

Tim

<?php 

$hostname="someserver.net";
$username="someusername";
$password="somepassword";
$dbname="someusername";
$usertable="sometable";

  function ago($timestamp){
    $difference = time() - $timestamp;
    $periods = array("second", "minute", "hour", "day", "week", "month", "years", "decade");
    $lengths = array("60","60","24","7","4.35","12","10");
    for($j = 0; $difference >= $lengths[$j]; $j++)
      $difference /= $lengths[$j];
    $difference = round($difference);
    if($difference != 1) $periods[$j].= "s";
    $text = "$difference $periods[$j] ago";
    return $text;
  }

mysql_connect($hostname,$username,$password) or die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db("$dbname") or die(mysql_error());

$data = mysql_query("SELECT id, title, date FROM $usertable ORDER BY ID DESC LIMIT 7") 
or die(mysql_error()); 
while($info = mysql_fetch_array( $data ))

{
echo "<a href=article-".$info['id'].".htm>" .$info['title']."</a>".ago($info['date']);
echo "<br>";
}

?>

[sheephat]

http://uk2.php.net/manual/en/function.time.php

Look at the notes

[bpat1434]

The ago function should probably look like:

function ago($timestamp)
{
	$diff = time()-$timestamp;

$year = 60*60*24*365;
$month = (60*60*24*365)/12;
$week = 60*60*24*7;
$day = 60*60*24;
$hour = 60*60;
$minute = 60;

$years = floor($diff/$year);
$diff = $diff-($years*$year);

$months = floor($diff/$month);
$diff = $diff-($months*$month);

$weeks = floor($diff/$week);
$diff = $diff-($weeks*$week);

$days = floor($diff/$day);
$diff = $diff-($days*$day);

$hours = floor($diff/$hour);
$diff = $diff-($hours*$hour);

$minutes = floor($diff/$minute);
$diff = $diff-($minutes*$minute);

$seconds = round($diff);

$text = '';
if($years > 0)
	$text .= $years . ' years ';

if($months > 0)
	$text .= $months . ' months ';

if($weeks > 0)
	$text .= $weeks . ' weeks ';

if($days > 0)
	$text .= $days . ' days ';

if($hours > 0)
	$text .= $hours . ' hours ';

if($minutes > 0)
	$text .= $minutes . ' minutes ';

if($seconds > 0)
	$text .= $seconds . ' seconds.';

return $text;
}


echo ago(strtotime('January 31, 1984 12:15:00'));

That works for me, gives me this output:

23 years 5 months 1 weeks 2 days 1 hours 30 minutes 19 seconds.

[NogDog]

If it's any help, you might want to look at this script I created a few months ago.

[Tim_Silva]

Thanks to everyone for the quick response.

After much trying and errors I found out the problem was in the fact that I had a MySQL TIMESTAMP and it had to be converted to UNIX TIMESTAMP. Once I did that, the fuction worked flawlessly.

By the way, this "ago" function is great because it rounds up the time, so that it only gives you the smallest value: 12 seconds ago, 34 minutes ago, 2 years ago... etc.

btw, I converted the TIMESTAMP with the following function by Aidan Lister:

function convert_timestamp ($timestamp)
{
    $parts = sscanf($timestamp, '%04u%02u%02u%02u%02u%02u');
    $string = vsprintf('%04u-%02u-%02u %02u:%02u:%02u', $parts);

return strtotime($string);
}

Tim