Question

I’ve got a timestamp as a string like:

Thu, 21 May 09 19:10:09 -0700

and I’d like to convert it to a relative time stamp like ’20 minutes ago’ or ‘3 days ago’.

What’s the best way to do this using Objective-C for the iPhone?

Answer 1

-(NSString *)dateDiff:(NSString *)origDate {
    NSDateFormatter *df = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    [df setFormatterBehavior:NSDateFormatterBehavior10_4];
    [df setDateFormat:@"EEE, dd MMM yy HH:mm:ss VVVV"];
    NSDate *convertedDate = [df dateFromString:origDate];
    [df release];
    NSDate *todayDate = [NSDate date];
    double ti = [convertedDate timeIntervalSinceDate:todayDate];
    ti = ti * -1;
    if(ti < 1) {
        return @"never";
    } else  if (ti < 60) {
        return @"less than a minute ago";
    } else if (ti < 3600) {
        int diff = round(ti / 60);
        return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d minutes ago", diff];
    } else if (ti < 86400) {
        int diff = round(ti / 60 / 60);
        return[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d hours ago", diff];
    } else if (ti < 2629743) {
        int diff = round(ti / 60 / 60 / 24);
        return[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d days ago", diff];
    } else {
        return @"never";
    }   
}