How to calculate elapsed time from now with Joda-Time?

java algorithm datetime grails jodatime
fabien7474 picture fabien7474 · Feb 1, 2010 · Viewed 29.9k times · Source

I need to calculate the time elapsed from one specific date till now and display it with the same format as StackOverflow questions, i.e.:

15s ago
2min ago
2hours ago
2days ago
25th Dec 08

Do you know how to achieve it with the Java Joda-Time library? Is there a helper method out there that already implements it, or should I write the algorithm myself?

Answer

BalusC picture BalusC · Feb 1, 2010

To calculate the elapsed time with JodaTime, use Period. To format the elapsed time in the desired human representation, use PeriodFormatter which you can build by PeriodFormatterBuilder.

Here's a kickoff example:

DateTime myBirthDate = new DateTime(1978, 3, 26, 12, 35, 0, 0);
DateTime now = new DateTime();
Period period = new Period(myBirthDate, now);

PeriodFormatter formatter = new PeriodFormatterBuilder()
    .appendSeconds().appendSuffix(" seconds ago\n")
    .appendMinutes().appendSuffix(" minutes ago\n")
    .appendHours().appendSuffix(" hours ago\n")
    .appendDays().appendSuffix(" days ago\n")
    .appendWeeks().appendSuffix(" weeks ago\n")
    .appendMonths().appendSuffix(" months ago\n")
    .appendYears().appendSuffix(" years ago\n")
    .printZeroNever()
    .toFormatter();

String elapsed = formatter.print(period);
System.out.println(elapsed);

This prints by now 

3 seconds ago
51 minutes ago
7 hours ago
6 days ago
10 months ago
31 years ago

(Cough, old, cough) You see that I've taken months and years into account as well and configured it to omit the values when those are zero.

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