Convert seconds into days, hours, minutes and seconds

Question

I would like to convert a variable $uptime which is seconds, into days, hours, minutes and seconds.

Example:

Answer 1

I don't know why some of these answers are ridiculously long or complex. Here's one using the DateTime Class. Kind of similar to radzserg's answer. This will only display the units necessary, and negative times will have the 'ago' suffix...

function calctime($seconds = 0) {

    $datetime1 = date_create("@0");
    $datetime2 = date_create("@$seconds");
    $interval = date_diff($datetime1, $datetime2);

    if ( $interval->y >= 1 ) $thetime[] = pluralize( $interval->y, 'year' );
    if ( $interval->m >= 1 ) $thetime[] = pluralize( $interval->m, 'month' );
    if ( $interval->d >= 1 ) $thetime[] = pluralize( $interval->d, 'day' );
    if ( $interval->h >= 1 ) $thetime[] = pluralize( $interval->h, 'hour' );
    if ( $interval->i >= 1 ) $thetime[] = pluralize( $interval->i, 'minute' );
    if ( $interval->s >= 1 ) $thetime[] = pluralize( $interval->s, 'second' );

    return isset($thetime) ? implode(' ', $thetime) . ($interval->invert ? ' ago' : '') : NULL;
}

function pluralize($count, $text) {
    return $count . ($count == 1 ? " $text" : " ${text}s");
}

// Examples:
//    -86400 = 1 day ago
//     12345 = 3 hours 25 minutes 45 seconds
// 987654321 = 31 years 3 months 18 days 4 hours 25 minutes 21 seconds

EDIT: If you want to condense the above example down to use less variables / space (at the expense of legibility), here is an alternate version that does the same thing:

function calctime($seconds = 0) {
    $interval = date_diff(date_create("@0"),date_create("@$seconds"));

    foreach (array('y'=>'year','m'=>'month','d'=>'day','h'=>'hour','i'=>'minute','s'=>'second') as $format=>$desc) {
        if ($interval->$format >= 1) $thetime[] = $interval->$format . ($interval->$format == 1 ? " $desc" : " {$desc}s");
    }

    return isset($thetime) ? implode(' ', $thetime) . ($interval->invert ? ' ago' : '') : NULL;
}