Question

Using “number of days” from a SQL database, how can I return it in a more human-friendly format?

For example, for many users, this number is pretty high. Instead of them seeing “438 days”, I would like to display: “1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 5 days.”

Thank you!

Answer 1

Select floor(yourfield/365) + ' year(s), ' + 
       floor(mod(yourfield,365)/30) + ' month(s), ' + 
       floor(mod(mod(yourfield,365),30)/7) +' week(s), ' + 
       floor(mod(mod(mod(yourfield,365),30),7)) + ' day(s)'
FROM table

assumes + is valid operator in mySQL for string concat.
assumes 1 year = 365 days
assumes 1 month = 30 days
assumes 1 week = 7 days

Given we don’t know start/end dates taking into account days in month or leap years is an exercise in futility.