Question

This function works fine if I disable errors. But I have to solve them.
So I enabled the errors and found the following errors:

Notice: Undefined variable: retval in /home/content/79/9482579/html/gamelinkexchange.com/all/function.php on line 20

Notice: Use of undefined constant length – assumed ‘length’ in /home/content/79/9482579/html/gamelinkexchange.com/all/function.php on line 55

Here is my function:

function time_ago($date,$granularity=2) {
date_default_timezone_set('Asia/Calcutta');
    $date = strtotime($date); 
    $difference = time() - $date;
    $periods = array('decade' => 315360000,
        'year' => 31536000,
        'month' => 2628000,
        'week' => 604800, 
        'day' => 86400,
        'hour' => 3600,
        'minute' => 60,
        'second' => 1);
foreach ($periods as $key => $value) {
        if ($difference >= $value) {
            $time = floor($difference/$value);
            $difference %= $value;
            $retval .= ($retval ? ' ' : '').$time.' '; /*error*/
            $retval .= (($time > 1) ? $key.'s' : $key);
            $granularity--;
        }
        if ($granularity == '0') { break; }
    }
    return $retval.' ago';      
}
function gethours($str)
{
     if(strpos($str, "decade"))
     {
        return 0;
     }
     else if(strpos($str, "year"))
     {
        return 0;
     }
     else if(strpos($str, "month"))
     {
        return 0;
     }
     else if(strpos($str, "week"))
     {
        return 0;
     }
     else if(strpos($str, "day"))
     {
        return 0;
     }
     else if(strpos($str, "hours"))
     {
        $strarr= explode(" ",$str);
        $j=0; /*error*/
        for($i=0;$i<$strarr.length;$i++)
        {
           if($strarr[$i]=="hours")
           { 
                 $j=$i-1;
           }
        }
        return $strarr[$j];
     }
else {   return 1; }
}

This function is running very slow so I need to solve these errors. I tried solution provided in other pages of this website and other forums but nothing did help. Please provide a good solution which consumes less resources.
I need a solution to this. Because every entry has to pass time.

This is my first question, I am a newbie, please help. Thank You.

Answer 1

I couldn’t see you initialising your $retval anywhere. You should maybe have something like $retval = '' before you start appending anything to it, based on its value.

About the other error, you’ve mistaken php with Java. In php you get the length of an array with count($strarr) instead of $strarr.length

Update
Instead of

$retval .= ($retval ? ' ' : '').$time.' ';  

you could simply use

$retval = $time.' ';