Integrating Human Time Difference and Traditional Timestamps?

Question

My goal is to use human_time_diff only when the post was added on the current day. When it wasn't, I would like to revert to the traditional timestamp (the second code). I'm unsure how this would be achieved and need some help. I have provided the two codes I would be combining below.

The code for grabbing the difference between the posting time and current time (i.e. 25 minutes ago):

<?php echo human_time_diff( get_the_time('U'), current_time('timestamp') ) . ' ago'; ?> 

The code for stating the post was added on X date at X time:

<?php the_time('F j, Y'); ?> at <?php the_time('g:i a'); ?>

Answer 1

You can get the post's creation date/time and compare it to the current date/time.

global $post;
$now = time(); // Current time in seconds since Epoch
$post_created = strtotime( $post->post_date );  // post's creation date in seconds since Epoch, so we're comparing apples to apples
$one_day_in_seconds = 24*60*60;
if ( ( $now - $post_created ) < $one_day_in_seconds ) {
    echo human_time_diff( get_the_time('U'), current_time('timestamp') ) . ' ago';
} else {
    the_time( 'F j, Y \a\t g:i a' );
}

References

PHP.net:
time()
strtotime()

Codex:
Post Object (for the post_date)

Answer 2

You need to express your condition in code. You are interested in comparing to current day, which can be expressed as PHP format Y z for example.

So your condition would be something like (not tested):

if ( the_time( 'Y z' ) === date_i18n( 'Y z' ) )

    // today

else

   // otherwise