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

Thanks for the various code posted above.

As Hafthor pointed out there are limitations of the original code to do with rounding. I also found that some of the results his code kicked out didn't match with what I'd expect e.g. Friday afternoon -> Monday morning would show as '2 days ago'. I think we'd all call that 3 days ago, even though 3 complete 24 hour periods haven't elapsed.

So I've amended the code (this is MS SQL). Disclaimer: I am a novice TSQL coder so this is quite hacky, but works!!

I've done some overrides - e.g. anything up to 2 weeks is expressed in days. Anything over that up to 2 months is expressed in weeks. Anything over that is in months etc. Just seemed like the intuitive way to express it.

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 1/7, 'week' union all
  select 1, 'day' 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)

if @s like '%days%'
BEGIN
 -- if over 2 months ago then express in months
 IF convert(nvarchar,DATEDIFF(MM, @CompareDate, GETDATE())) >= 2
 BEGIN
  select @s = convert(nvarchar,DATEDIFF(MM, @CompareDate, GETDATE())) + ' months ago'
 END

 -- if over 2 weeks ago then express in weeks, otherwise express as days
 ELSE IF convert(nvarchar,DATEDIFF(DD, @CompareDate, GETDATE())) >= 14
 BEGIN
  select @s = convert(nvarchar,DATEDIFF(WK, @CompareDate, GETDATE())) + ' weeks ago'
 END

 ELSE
  select @s = convert(nvarchar,DATEDIFF(DD, @CompareDate, GETDATE())) + ' days ago'
END

return @s
END