How to format time since xxx e.g. “4 minutes ago” similar to Stack Exchange sites

Question

The question is how to format a JavaScript Date as a string stating the time elapsed similar to the way you see times displayed on Stack Overflow.

e.g.

• 1 minute ago
• 1 hour ago
• 1 day ago
• 1 month ago
• 1 year ago

Answer 1

function timeSince(date) {

  var seconds = Math.floor((new Date() - date) / 1000);

  var interval = seconds / 31536000;

  if (interval > 1) {
    return Math.floor(interval) + " years";
  }
  interval = seconds / 2592000;
  if (interval > 1) {
    return Math.floor(interval) + " months";
  }
  interval = seconds / 86400;
  if (interval > 1) {
    return Math.floor(interval) + " days";
  }
  interval = seconds / 3600;
  if (interval > 1) {
    return Math.floor(interval) + " hours";
  }
  interval = seconds / 60;
  if (interval > 1) {
    return Math.floor(interval) + " minutes";
  }
  return Math.floor(seconds) + " seconds";
}
var aDay = 24*60*60*1000;
console.log(timeSince(new Date(Date.now()-aDay)));
console.log(timeSince(new Date(Date.now()-aDay*2)));