looking for time function

[jasondavis]

My DB returns a result of 2007-08-02 12:25:58 I'm looking for a small fast function I can plug in to make 2007-08-02 12:25:58 show up as 23 minutes ago or 1 hour and 23 minutes ago

[devinemke]

are you using mySQL? if so...

SELECT DATE_SUB(date, INTERVAL 23 MINUTE) FROM table

[jasondavis]

basicly what I have to play with is echo $line['last_visit']; this returns 2007-08-02 12:25:58 and I would like it to convert to minutes/hours

[devinemke]

have you looked at TIMEDIFF?

[jasondavis]

yes the closest thing I can find is here http://www.phpfreaks.com/quickcode/duration/450.php which requieres my date to be in some sort of timestamp

[atokatim]

try this. I tested it and it worked perfectly 🙂

<?
function timeDiff($timestamp,$detailed=false,$n = 0){
    $now = time();

#If the difference is positive "ago" - negative "away"
($timestamp >= $now) ? $action = 'away' : $action = 'ago';

$diff = ($action == 'away' ? $timestamp - $now : $now - $timestamp);

# Set the periods of time
$periods = array("second", "minute", "hour", "day", "week", "month", "year", "decade");
$lengths = array(1, 60, 3600, 86400, 604800, 2630880, 31570560, 315705600);

# Go from decades backwards to seconds
$i = sizeof($lengths) - 1;         # Size of the lengths / periods in case you change them
$time = "";                        # The string we will hold our times in
while($i >= $n) {
    if($diff > $lengths[$i-1]) {        # if the difference is greater than the length we are checking... continue
        $val = floor($diff / $lengths[$i-1]);    # 65 / 60 = 1.  That means one minute.  130 / 60 = 2. Two minutes.. etc
        $time .= $val ." ". $periods[$i-1].($val > 1 ? 's ' : ' ');  # The value, then the name associated, then add 's' if plural
        $diff -= ($val * $lengths[$i-1]);    # subtract the values we just used from the overall diff so we can find the rest of the information
        if(!$detailed) { $i = 0; }    # if detailed is turn off (default) only show the first set found, else show all information
    }
    $i--;
}

# Basic error checking.
if($time == "") {
    return "Error-- Unable to calculate time.";
} else {
    return $time.$action;
}
}

$yourdate = "2007-08-02 12:25:58";
$sets = explode(" ", $yourdate);
$date_array = explode("-", $sets[0]);
$updated_date = $date_array[1]."/".$date_array[2]."/".$date_array[0]." ".$sets[1];
$yourtimestamp = strtotime($updated_date);

echo timeDiff($yourtimestamp,1,1);
?>

[NogDog]

-23 minutes:

echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime($line['last_visit']) - (23 * 60) );

-1 hour and 23 minutes:

echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime($line['last_visit']) - (83 * 60) );