How to format time since xxx e.g. “4 minutes ago” similar to Stack Exchange sites

Question

The question is how to format a JavaScript Date as a string stating the time elapsed similar to the way you see times displayed on Stack Overflow.

e.g.<

Answer 1

I haven't checked (although it wouldn't be hard to), but I think that Stack Exchange sites use the jquery.timeago plugin to create these time strings.

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It's quite easy to use the plugin, and it's clean and updates automatically.

Here's a quick sample (from the plugin's home page):

First, load jQuery and the plugin:

Now, let's attach it to your timestamps on DOM ready:

jQuery(document).ready(function() {
jQuery("abbr.timeago").timeago(); });

This will turn all abbr elements with a class of timeago and an ISO 8601 timestamp in the title: July 17, 2008 into something like this: about a year ago which yields: about a year ago. As time passes, the timestamps will automatically update.