Question

I want the date and time to be displayed as something like this on my page :-

 1 minute ago
25 minutes ago
45 minutes ago
4 hours ago
3 weeks ago

my stored procedure returns the date in the following format:-

2011-02-08 13:14:44.513

Can I format it the way I want it to be displayed in the SP only or do i have to do coding in the code behind of my aspx page?

Answer 1

As far as I know there is no built in function to do this, however a case statement and some math can return what you want.

I agree that it should be done behind the application rather than at the database level but that being said. Here is some code I threw together as an example, you should be able to modify it for your needs.

    DECLARE @SecDifference INTEGER

    DECLARE @OutPut nvarchar(25)

    DECLARE @CheckDate DATETIME

    SET @CheckDate = '2011-03-06 06:01:58.187'


    SET @SecDifference = (SELECT DATEDIFF(ss, @CheckDate ,GETDATE()))

    SET @OutPut = (CASE WHEN @SecDifference < 61 THEN CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @SecDifference/60) + ' minute ago' 
                WHEN @SecDifference > 60 AND @SecDIfference <= 3600 THEN CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @SecDifference/60) + ' minutes ago' 
                WHEN @SecDifference > 3600 AND @SecDifference <= 86400 THEN  CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @SecDifference/3600) + ' hours ago' 
                WHEN @SecDifference > 86400 AND @SecDifference <= 604800 THEN CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @SecDifference/86400) + ' Day(s) ago' 
                WHEN @SecDifference > 604800 AND @SecDifference <= 2419200 THEN CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @SecDifference/604800) + ' Week(s) ago' 
                WHEN @SecDifference > 2419200 AND @SecDifference < 29030400 THEN CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @SecDifference/2419200) + ' Month(s) ago' 
                ELSE 'NOT' END)

    SELECT @OutPut
    --RETURN @OutPut