Best way to convert DateTime to "n Hours Ago" in SQL

Question

I wrote a SQL function to convert a datetime value in SQL to a friendlier "n Hours Ago" or "n Days Ago" etc type of message. And I was wondering if there was a better way to do it.

(Yes I know "don't do it in SQL" but for design reasons I have to do it this way).

Here is the function I've written:

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.GetFriendlyDateTimeValue
(
    @CompareDate DateTime
)
RETURNS nvarchar(48)
AS
BEGIN
    DECLARE @Now DateTime
    DECLARE @Hours int
        DECLARE @Suff nvarchar(256)
    DECLARE @Found bit

    SET @Found = 0
    SET @Now = getDate()
    SET @Hours = DATEDIFF(MI, @CompareDate, @Now)/60

    IF @Hours <= 1
    BEGIN
        SET @Suff = 'Just Now'
        SET @Found = 1
        RETURN @Suff
    END

    IF @Hours < 24
    BEGIN
        SET @Suff = ' Hours Ago'
        SET @Found = 1
    END

    IF @Hours >= 8760 AND @Found = 0
    BEGIN
        SET @Hours = @Hours / 8760
        SET @Suff = ' Years Ago'
        SET @Found = 1
    END

    IF @Hours >= 720 AND @Found = 0
    BEGIN
        SET @Hours = @Hours / 720
        SET @Suff = ' Months Ago'
        SET @Found = 1
    END

    IF @Hours >= 168 AND @Found = 0
    BEGIN
        SET @Hours = @Hours / 168
        SET @Suff = ' Weeks Ago'
        SET @Found = 1
    END

    IF @Hours >= 24 AND @Found = 0
    BEGIN
        SET @Hours = @Hours / 24
        SET @Suff = ' Days Ago'
        SET @Found = 1
    END

    RETURN Convert(nvarchar, @Hours) + @Suff
END

Answer 1

Your code looks functional. As for a better way, that is going to get subjective. You might want to check out this page as it deals with time spans in SQL.

Answer 2

As you say, I probably wouldn't do it in SQL, but as a thought exercise have a MySQL implementation:

CASE
    WHEN compare_date between date_sub(now(), INTERVAL 60 minute) and now() 
        THEN concat(minute(TIMEDIFF(now(), compare_date)), ' minutes ago')

    WHEN datediff(now(), compare_date) = 1 
        THEN 'Yesterday'

    WHEN compare_date between date_sub(now(), INTERVAL 24 hour) and now() 
        THEN concat(hour(TIMEDIFF(NOW(), compare_date)), ' hours ago')

    ELSE concat(datediff(now(), compare_date),' days ago')
END

Based on a similar sample seen on the MySQL Date and Time manual pages

Answer 3

In Oracle:

select
  CC.MOD_DATETIME,
  'Last modified ' ||
  case when (sysdate - cc.mod_datetime) < 1
       then round((sysdate - CC.MOD_DATETIME)*24) || ' hours ago'
       when (sysdate - CC.MOD_DATETIME) between 1 and 7
       then round(sysdate-CC.MOD_DATETIME) || ' days ago'
       when (sysdate - CC.MOD_DATETIME) between 8 and 365
       then round((sysdate - CC.MOD_DATETIME) / 7) || ' weeks ago'
       when (sysdate - CC.MOD_DATETIME) > 365   
       then round((sysdate - CC.MOD_DATETIME) / 365) || ' years ago'
       end
from 
  customer_catalog CC

Answer 4

How about this? You could expand this pattern to do "years" messages, and you could put in a check for "1 day" or "1 hour" so it wouldn't say "1 days ago"...

I like the CASE statement in SQL.

drop function dbo.time_diff_message    
GO

create function dbo.time_diff_message (
    @input_date datetime
)
returns varchar(200)    
as    
begin    
declare @msg varchar(200)    
declare @hourdiff int

set @hourdiff = datediff(hour, @input_date, getdate())    
set @msg = case when @hourdiff < 0 then ' from now' else ' ago' end    
set @hourdiff = abs(@hourdiff)    
set @msg = case when @hourdiff > 24 then convert(varchar, @hourdiff/24) + ' days' + @msg
       else convert(varchar, @hourdiff) + ' hours' + @msg
      end

return @msg
end

GO    
select dbo.time_diff_message('Dec 7 1941')

Answer 5

My attempt - this is for MS SQL. It supports 'ago' and 'from now', pluralization and it doesn't use rounding or datediff, but truncation -- datediff gives 1 month diff between 8/30 and 9/1 which is probably not what you want. Rounding gives 1 month diff between 9/1 and 9/16. Again, probably not what you want.

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.GetFriendlyDateTimeValue( @CompareDate DATETIME ) RETURNS NVARCHAR(48) AS BEGIN
declare @s nvarchar(48)
set @s='Now'
select top 1 @s=convert(nvarchar,abs(n))+' '+s+case when abs(n)>1 then 's' else '' end+case when n>0 then ' ago' else ' from now' end from (
 select convert(int,(convert(float,(getdate()-@comparedate))*n)) as n, s from (
  select 1/365 as n, 'Year' as s union all
  select 1/30, 'Month' union all
  select 1, 'Day' union all
  select 7, 'Week' union all
  select 24, 'Hour' union all
  select 24*60, 'Minute' union all
  select 24*60*60, 'Second'
 ) k
) j where abs(n)>0 order by abs(n)
return @s
END

Answer 6

Date to eval: 2009-05-20 11:18:30 Now: 2009-05-21 11:19:30

this gives X weeks ago rather than 1 day ago!! a bug??

looks like in the above example as soon as now time (11:19) is more then the date to eval then it show correctly??? ideas???

Answer 7

Hi all

Thanks for the various code posted above.

As Hafthor pointed out there are limitations of the original code to do with rounding. I also found that some of the results his code kicked out didn't match with what I'd expect e.g. Friday afternoon -> Monday morning would show as '2 days ago'. I think we'd all call that 3 days ago, even though 3 complete 24 hour periods haven't elapsed.

So I've amended the code (this is MS SQL). Disclaimer: I am a novice TSQL coder so this is quite hacky, but works!!

I've done some overrides - e.g. anything up to 2 weeks is expressed in days. Anything over that up to 2 months is expressed in weeks. Anything over that is in months etc. Just seemed like the intuitive way to express it.

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[GetFriendlyDateTimeValue]( @CompareDate DATETIME ) RETURNS NVARCHAR(48) AS BEGIN
declare @s nvarchar(48)

set @s='Now'
select top 1 @s=convert(nvarchar,abs(n))+' '+s+case when abs(n)>1 then 's' else '' end+case when n>0 then ' ago' else ' from now' end from (
 select convert(int,(convert(float,(getdate()-@comparedate))*n)) as n, s from (
  select 1/365 as n, 'year' as s union all
  select 1/30, 'month' union all
  select 1/7, 'week' union all
  select 1, 'day' union all
  select 24, 'hour' union all
  select 24*60, 'minute' union all
  select 24*60*60, 'second'
 ) k
) j where abs(n)>0 order by abs(n)

if @s like '%days%'
BEGIN
 -- if over 2 months ago then express in months
 IF convert(nvarchar,DATEDIFF(MM, @CompareDate, GETDATE())) >= 2
 BEGIN
  select @s = convert(nvarchar,DATEDIFF(MM, @CompareDate, GETDATE())) + ' months ago'
 END

 -- if over 2 weeks ago then express in weeks, otherwise express as days
 ELSE IF convert(nvarchar,DATEDIFF(DD, @CompareDate, GETDATE())) >= 14
 BEGIN
  select @s = convert(nvarchar,DATEDIFF(WK, @CompareDate, GETDATE())) + ' weeks ago'
 END

 ELSE
  select @s = convert(nvarchar,DATEDIFF(DD, @CompareDate, GETDATE())) + ' days ago'
END

return @s
END