Best way to convert DateTime to “n Hours Ago” in SQL

Question

I wrote a SQL function to convert a datetime value in SQL to a friendlier \"n Hours Ago\" or \"n Days Ago\" etc type of message. And I was wondering if there was a better wa

Answer 1

My attempt - this is for MS SQL. It supports 'ago' and 'from now', pluralization and it doesn't use rounding or datediff, but truncation -- datediff gives 1 month diff between 8/30 and 9/1 which is probably not what you want. Rounding gives 1 month diff between 9/1 and 9/16. Again, probably not what you want.

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.GetFriendlyDateTimeValue( @CompareDate DATETIME ) RETURNS NVARCHAR(48) AS BEGIN
declare @s nvarchar(48)
set @s='Now'
select top 1 @s=convert(nvarchar,abs(n))+' '+s+case when abs(n)>1 then 's' else '' end+case when n>0 then ' ago' else ' from now' end from (
 select convert(int,(convert(float,(getdate()-@comparedate))*n)) as n, s from (
  select 1/365 as n, 'Year' as s union all
  select 1/30, 'Month' union all
  select 1, 'Day' union all
  select 7, 'Week' union all
  select 24, 'Hour' union all
  select 24*60, 'Minute' union all
  select 24*60*60, 'Second'
 ) k
) j where abs(n)>0 order by abs(n)
return @s
END