Question

I am formatting my date as follows:

String inputDateString = aMessage.getString("updated_at");
                        DateTimeFormatter fmt = ISODateTimeFormat.dateTimeNoMillis();

                        DateTime date = fmt.parseDateTime(inputDateString);
                        DateTime now = new DateTime();
                        Period period = new Period(date, now);

                        PeriodFormatter formatter = new PeriodFormatterBuilder()
                            .appendSeconds().appendSuffix(" seconds ago\n")
                            .printZeroNever()
                            .toFormatter();

                        String elapsed = formatter.print(period);

                        dateTextView.setText(elapsed);

I would like to be able to show:

3 seconds ago if the period is less than 60 seconds
3 minutes ago if the period is less than 60 minutes
3 hours ago is the period is less than X hours
3 days ago if the period is less than X days 

etc. etc.

How can I achieve this?

Answer 1

Have a look at the methods available on Period, in particular those such as toStandardSeconds(). Using these it should be straightforward to achieve what you’re after with a few if-else statements making tests such as

if (period.toStandardSeconds().getSeconds() < 60) {
   // form second-based string
}
else if (period.toStandardMinutes().getMinutes() < 60) {
   // ...

I think the PeriodFormatter is a red herring in this case, as I don’t think it’s possible to construct a single formatter that does what you want – and in the if blocks you can just get the seconds/hours/etc. directly using the same method calls as in the conditionals.