To show only what you need and not day 0, hours 0...
formatTime = function(time) {
var ret = time % 1000 + ' ms';
time = Math.floor(time / 1000);
if (time !== 0) {
ret = time % 60 + "s "+ret;
time = Math.floor(time / 60);
if (time !== 0) {
ret = time % 60 + "min "+ret;
time = Math.floor(time / 60);
if (time !== 0) {
ret = time % 60 + "h "+ret;
...
}
}
}
return ret;
};
If you are interested in an existing javascript library that does the job very well, you may want to check moment.js.
More specifically, the relevant moment.js piece for your question is durations.
Here are some examples of how you can take advantage of it to achieve your task:
var duration = moment.duration(31536000);
// Using the built-in humanize function:
console.log(duration.humanize()); // Output: "9 hours"
console.log(duration.humanize(true)); // Output: "in 9 hours"
moment.js has built-in support for 50+ human languages, so if you use the humanize() method you get multi-language support for free.
If you want to display the exact time information, you can take advantage of the moment-precise-range plug-in for moment.js that was created exactly for this purpose:
console.log(moment.preciseDiff(0, 39240754000);
// Output: 1 year 2 months 30 days 5 hours 12 minutes 34 seconds
One thing to note is that currently moment.js does not support weeks / days (in week) for duration object.
With the help of Dan answer, I came up with this if you want to calculate the difference between the post created time (from DB it should be retrieved as UTC) and the users system time and then show them the elapsed time, you could use below function
function dateToStr(input_date) {
input_date= input_date+" UTC";
// convert times in milliseconds
var input_time_in_ms = new Date(input_date).getTime();
var current_time_in_ms = new Date().getTime();
var elapsed_time = current_time_in_ms - input_time_in_ms;
function numberEnding (number) {
return (number > 1) ? 's' : '';
}
var temp = Math.floor(elapsed_time / 1000);
var years = Math.floor(temp / 31536000);
if (years) {
return years + ' year' + numberEnding(years);
}
//TODO: Months! Maybe weeks?
var days = Math.floor((temp %= 31536000) / 86400);
if (days) {
return days + ' day' + numberEnding(days);
}
var hours = Math.floor((temp %= 86400) / 3600);
if (hours) {
return hours + ' hour' + numberEnding(hours);
}
var minutes = Math.floor((temp %= 3600) / 60);
if (minutes) {
return minutes + ' minute' + numberEnding(minutes);
}
var seconds = temp % 60;
if (seconds) {
return seconds + ' second' + numberEnding(seconds);
}
return 'less than a second'; //'just now' //or other string you like;
}
Where custom[0] is the total time to wait for; it will keep dividing the time by 2, warning the time remaining until the timer ends, and stop warning once the time is under 15 seconds.
function secondsToTimeString(input) {
let years = 0, days = 0, hours = 0, minutes = 0, seconds = 0;
let ref = [31536000,86400,3600,60,1];
for (let i = 0;i < ref.length;i++) {
let val = ref[i];
while (val <= input) {
input -= val;
if (i === 0) years++;
if (i === 1) days++;
if (i === 2) hours++;
if (i === 3) minutes++;
if (i === 4) seconds++;
}
return {years, days, hours, minutes, seconds};
}
// This returns a string representation for a time interval given in milliseconds
// that appeals to human intuition and so does not care for leap-years,
// month length irregularities and other pesky nuisances.
const human_millis = function (ms, digits=1) {
const levels=[
["ms", 1000],
["sec", 60],
["min", 60],
["hrs", 24],
["days", 7],
["weeks", (30/7)], // Months are intuitively around 30 days
["months", 12.1666666666666666], // Compensate for bakari-da in last step
["years", 10],
["decades", 10],
["centuries", 10],
["millenia", 10],
];
var value=ms;
var name="";
var step=1;
for(var i=0, max=levels.length;i<max;++i){
value/=step;
name=levels[i][0];
step=levels[i][1];
if(value < step){
break;
}
}
return value.toFixed(digits)+" "+name;
}
console.clear();
console.log("---------");
console.log(human_millis(1));
console.log(human_millis(10));
console.log(human_millis(100));
console.log(human_millis(1000));
console.log(human_millis(1000*60));
console.log(human_millis(1000*60*60));
console.log(human_millis(1000*60*60*24));
console.log(human_millis(1000*60*60*24*7));
console.log(human_millis(1000*60*60*24*30));
console.log(human_millis(1000*60*60*24*365));
console.log(human_millis(1000*60*60*24*365*10));
console.log(human_millis(1000*60*60*24*365*10*10));
console.log(human_millis(1000*60*60*24*365*10*10*10));
console.log(human_millis(1000*60*60*24*365*10*10*10*10));
If you use Typescript type and cast to make it work
let name : string | number = "";
let step : string | number =1;
for(var i=0, max=levels.length;i<max;++i){
value/= step as number;
name=levels[i][0];
step=levels[i][1];
if(value < step){
break;
}
}
relativeTime(new Date().toISOString()) //'2021-11-13T18:48:58.243Z'
-> now
relativeTime('2021-11-13T18:48:50.243Z')
-> 8 seconds ago
relativeTime('2021-11-14T18:48:50.243Z')
-> in 23 hours
relativeTime('2021-11-15T18:48:50.243Z')
-> tomorrow
relativeTime('2021-10-15T18:48:50.243Z')
-> 29 days ago
relativeTime('2021-12-15T18:48:50.243Z')
-> next month
const humanize = require('human-date');
let yesterday = new Date(new Date().setDate(new Date().getDate()-1));
console.log(humanize.relativeTime(yesterday)); //=> 1 day ago