Show different time stamp based on time

Question

What's the best way to show a time stamp based on different times? For example: if a post is under 24 hours, show %% mins/hours ago. If a post is over 24 hours, show month/day/time. If a post if over a year ago, show month/day/year/time.

I've done this so far:

<?php if(get_the_time('G') < 23) {
the_time('Y'); } else {
the_time('F j, Y at g:i a'); } ?>

Answer 1

Check out human_time_diff():

if ( DAY_IN_SECONDS < ( $time = current_time( 'timestamp' ) ) - ( $time_post = get_the_time( 'U' ) ) )
    echo human_time_diff( $time_post, $time ) . ' ago';
else
    the_time( 'F j, Y at g:i a' );

DAY_IN_SECONDS is a handy "helper" constant in WordPress, along with:

• MINUTE_IN_SECONDS
• HOUR_IN_SECONDS
• WEEK_IN_SECONDS
• YEAR_IN_SECONDS

Answer 2

Further, if you want to work with the amount of days, hours etc. you can use DateTime and DateInterval objects:

global $post;

$utc       = new DateTimeZone( 'UTC' );
$post_date = new DateTime( $post->post_date_gmt, $utc );
$now       = new DateTime( 'now', $utc );
$diff      = $post_date->diff( $now );

$diff is now an instance of the DateInterval Object with the following properties:

object(DateInterval)#4 (8) {
  ["y"]=>
  int(0)
  ["m"]=>
  int(2)
  ["d"]=>
  int(16)
  ["h"]=>
  int(19)
  ["i"]=>
  int(29)
  ["s"]=>
  int(59)
  ["invert"]=>
  int(0)
  ["days"]=>
  int(75)
}

Answer 3

Thanks for the responses! This is the solution:

<?php
if ( DAY_IN_SECONDS < ( $time = current_time( 'timestamp' ) ) - ( $time_post = get_the_time( 'U' ) ) )
    echo human_time_diff( $time_post, $time ) . ' ago';
elseif ( WEEK_IN_SECONDS < ( $time - $time_post ) )
    the_time( 'D / g:i a' );
elseif ( YEAR_IN_SECONDS < ( $time - $time_post ) )
    the_time( 'F j / g:i a' );
else
    the_time( 'F j, Y / g:i a' ); ?>