PHP How to find the time elapsed since a date time? [duplicate]

Answer 1

To improve upon @arnorhs answer I've added in the ability to have a more precise result so if you wanted years, months, days & hours for instance since the user joined.

I've added a new parameter to allow you to specify the number of points of precision you wish to have returned.

function get_friendly_time_ago($distant_timestamp, $max_units = 3) {
    $i = 0;
    $time = time() - $distant_timestamp; // to get the time since that moment
    $tokens = [
        31536000 => 'year',
        2592000 => 'month',
        604800 => 'week',
        86400 => 'day',
        3600 => 'hour',
        60 => 'minute',
        1 => 'second'
    ];

    $responses = [];
    while ($i < $max_units && $time > 0) {
        foreach ($tokens as $unit => $text) {
            if ($time < $unit) {
                continue;
            }
            $i++;
            $numberOfUnits = floor($time / $unit);

            $responses[] = $numberOfUnits . ' ' . $text . (($numberOfUnits > 1) ? 's' : '');
            $time -= ($unit * $numberOfUnits);
            break;
        }
    }

    if (!empty($responses)) {
        return implode(', ', $responses) . ' ago';
    }

    return 'Just now';
}