iPhone: Convert date string to a relative time stamp

Question

I've got a timestamp as a string like:

Thu, 21 May 09 19:10:09 -0700

and I'd like to convert it to a relative time stamp like '20 minutes ago' or '3 days ago'.

What's the best way to do this using Objective-C for the iPhone?

Answer 1

Use the NSDate class:

timeIntervalSinceDate

returns the interval in seconds.

Quick exercise to implement this in objective-c:

1. Get time "now" NSDate
2. Get the NSDate you wish to compare with
3. Get the interval in seconds using timeIntervalSinceDate

Then implement this pseudo code:

if (x < 60) // x seconds ago

else if( x/60 < 60) // floor(x/60) minutes ago

else if (x/(60*60) < 24) // floor(x/(60*60) hours ago

else if (x/(24*60*60) < 7) // floor(x(24*60*60) days ago

and so on...

then you need to decide whether a month is 30,31 or 28 days. Keep it simple - pick 30.

There might be a better way, but its 2am and this is the first thing that came to mind...

Answer 2

Here are methods from Cocoa to help you to get relevant info (not sure if they are all available in coca-touch).

    NSDate * today = [NSDate date];
    NSLog(@"today: %@", today);

    NSString * str = @"Thu, 21 May 09 19:10:09 -0700";
    NSDate * past = [NSDate dateWithNaturalLanguageString:str
                            locale:[[NSUserDefaults 
                            standardUserDefaults] dictionaryRepresentation]];

    NSLog(@"str: %@", str);
    NSLog(@"past: %@", past);

    NSCalendar *gregorian = [[NSCalendar alloc]
                             initWithCalendarIdentifier:NSGregorianCalendar];
    unsigned int unitFlags = NSYearCalendarUnit | NSMonthCalendarUnit | 
                             NSDayCalendarUnit | 
                             NSHourCalendarUnit | NSMinuteCalendarUnit | 
                             NSSecondCalendarUnit;
    NSDateComponents *components = [gregorian components:unitFlags
                                                fromDate:past
                                                  toDate:today
                                                 options:0];

    NSLog(@"months: %d", [components month]);
    NSLog(@"days: %d", [components day]);
    NSLog(@"hours: %d", [components hour]);
    NSLog(@"seconds: %d", [components second]);

The NSDateComponents object seems to hold the difference in relevant units (as specified). If you specify all units you can then use this method:

void dump(NSDateComponents * t)
{
    if ([t year]) NSLog(@"%d years ago", [t year]);
    else if ([t month]) NSLog(@"%d months ago", [t month]);
    else if ([t day]) NSLog(@"%d days ago", [t day]);
    else if ([t minute]) NSLog(@"%d minutes ago", [t minute]);
    else if ([t second]) NSLog(@"%d seconds ago", [t second]);
}

If you want to calculate yourself you can have a look at:

NSDate timeIntervalSinceDate

And then use seconds in the algorithm.

Disclaimer: If this interface is getting deprecated (I haven't checked), Apple's preferred way of doing this via NSDateFormatters, as suggested in comments below, looks pretty neat as well - I'll keep my answer for historical reasons, it may still be useful for some to look at the logic used.

Answer 3

Not sure why this isnt in cocoa-touch, i nice standard way of doing this would be great.

Set up some types to keep the data in, it will make it easier if you ever ned to localise it a bit more. (obviously expand if you need more time periods)

typedef struct DayHours {
    int Days;
    double Hours;
} DayHours;


+ (DayHours) getHourBasedTimeInterval:(double) hourBased withHoursPerDay:(double) hpd
{
    int NumberOfDays = (int)(fabs(hourBased) / hpd);
    float hoursegment = fabs(hourBased) - (NumberOfDays * hpd);
    DayHours dh;
    dh.Days = NumberOfDays;
    dh.Hours = hoursegment;
    return dh;
}

NOTE: I"m using an hour based calculation , as that is what my data is in. NSTimeInterval is second based. I also had to convert between the two.

Answer 4

-(NSString *)dateDiff:(NSString *)origDate {
    NSDateFormatter *df = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    [df setFormatterBehavior:NSDateFormatterBehavior10_4];
    [df setDateFormat:@"EEE, dd MMM yy HH:mm:ss VVVV"];
    NSDate *convertedDate = [df dateFromString:origDate];
    [df release];
    NSDate *todayDate = [NSDate date];
    double ti = [convertedDate timeIntervalSinceDate:todayDate];
    ti = ti * -1;
    if(ti < 1) {
     return @"never";
    } else  if (ti < 60) {
     return @"less than a minute ago";
    } else if (ti < 3600) {
     int diff = round(ti / 60);
     return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d minutes ago", diff];
    } else if (ti < 86400) {
     int diff = round(ti / 60 / 60);
     return[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d hours ago", diff];
    } else if (ti < 2629743) {
     int diff = round(ti / 60 / 60 / 24);
     return[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d days ago", diff];
    } else {
     return @"never";
    } 
}

Answer 5

I can't edit yet, but I took Gilean's code and made a couple of tweaks and made it a category of NSDateFormatter.

It accepts a format string so it will work w/ arbitrary strings and I added if clauses to have singular events be grammatically correct.

Cheers,

Carl C-M

@interface NSDateFormatter (Extras)
+ (NSString *)dateDifferenceStringFromString:(NSString *)dateString
                                  withFormat:(NSString *)dateFormat;

@end

@implementation NSDateFormatter (Extras)

+ (NSString *)dateDifferenceStringFromString:(NSString *)dateString
                                  withFormat:(NSString *)dateFormat
{
  NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
  [dateFormatter setFormatterBehavior:NSDateFormatterBehavior10_4];
  [dateFormatter setDateFormat:dateFormat];
  NSDate *date = [dateFormatter dateFromString:dateString];
  [dateFormatter release];
  NSDate *now = [NSDate date];
  double time = [date timeIntervalSinceDate:now];
  time *= -1;
  if(time < 1) {
    return dateString;
  } else if (time < 60) {
    return @"less than a minute ago";
  } else if (time < 3600) {
    int diff = round(time / 60);
    if (diff == 1) 
      return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"1 minute ago", diff];
    return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d minutes ago", diff];
  } else if (time < 86400) {
    int diff = round(time / 60 / 60);
    if (diff == 1)
      return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"1 hour ago", diff];
    return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d hours ago", diff];
  } else if (time < 604800) {
    int diff = round(time / 60 / 60 / 24);
    if (diff == 1) 
      return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"yesterday", diff];
    if (diff == 7) 
      return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"last week", diff];
    return[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d days ago", diff];
  } else {
    int diff = round(time / 60 / 60 / 24 / 7);
    if (diff == 1)
      return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"last week", diff];
    return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d weeks ago", diff];
  }   
}

@end