Question

Anybody knows how can I format a given time span to be formatted like facebook does?

i.e.

30 seconds ago, about an hours ago, yesterday at 8:37pm and so on…

thanks!

Answer 1

See the answer to this question. It’s been done before.

The code below is copied from the answer to the above question.

const int SECOND = 1;
const int MINUTE = 60 * SECOND;
const int HOUR = 60 * MINUTE;
const int DAY = 24 * HOUR;
const int MONTH = 30 * DAY;

if (delta < 0)
{
  return "not yet";
}
if (delta < 1 * MINUTE)
{
  return ts.Seconds == 1 ? "one second ago" : ts.Seconds + " seconds ago";
}
if (delta < 2 * MINUTE)
{
  return "a minute ago";
}
if (delta < 45 * MINUTE)
{
  return ts.Minutes + " minutes ago";
}
if (delta < 90 * MINUTE)
{
  return "an hour ago";
}
if (delta < 24 * HOUR)
{
  return ts.Hours + " hours ago";
}
if (delta < 48 * HOUR)
{
  return "yesterday";
}
if (delta < 30 * DAY)
{
  return ts.Days + " days ago";
}
if (delta < 12 * MONTH)
{
  int months = Convert.ToInt32(Math.Floor((double)ts.Days / 30));
  return months <= 1 ? "one month ago" : months + " months ago";
}
else
{
  int years = Convert.ToInt32(Math.Floor((double)ts.Days / 365));
  return years <= 1 ? "one year ago" : years + " years ago";
}