function humanTiming ($time)
        {

            $time = time() - $time; // to get the time since that moment
            $time = ($time<1)? 1 : $time;
            $tokens = array (
                31536000 => 'year',
                2592000 => 'month',
                604800 => 'week',
                86400 => 'day',
                3600 => 'hour',
                60 => 'minute',
                1 => 'second'
            );

            foreach ($tokens as $unit => $text) {
                if ($time < $unit) continue;
                $numberOfUnits = floor($time / $unit);
                return $numberOfUnits.' '.$text.(($numberOfUnits>1)?'s':'');
            }

        }

echo humanTiming( strtotime($mytimestring) );

$time_ago = ' ';
$time = time() - $time; // to get the time since that moment
$tokens = array (
31536000 => 'year',2592000 => 'month',604800 => 'week',86400 => 'day',3600 => 'hour',
60  => 'minute',1 => 'second');
foreach ($tokens as $unit => $text) {
if ($time < $unit)continue;
$numberOfUnits = floor($time / $unit);
$time_ago = ' '.$time_ago. $numberOfUnits.' '.$text.(($numberOfUnits>1)?'s':'').'  ';
$time = $time % $unit;}echo $time_ago;

如果你正在使用PostgreSQL，那么它将为你做的工作:

const DT_SQL = <<<SQL
WITH lapse AS (SELECT (?::timestamp(0) - now()::timestamp(0))::text t)
SELECT CASE
  WHEN (select t from lapse) ~ '^\s*-' THEN replace((select t from lapse), '-', '') ||' ago' 
  ELSE (select t from lapse) END;
SQL;

function timeSpanText($ts, $conn)
// $ts: date-time string, $conn: PostgreSQL PDO connection
{
 return $conn -> prepare(DT_SQL) -> execute([ts]) -> fetchColumn();
}

我使用以下功能几年了。它运行得很好:

function timeDifference($timestamp)
{
    $otherDate=$timestamp;
    $now=@date("Y-m-d H:i:s");

    $secondDifference=@strtotime($now)-@strtotime($otherDate);
    $extra="";
    if ($secondDifference == 2592000) { 
    // months 
    $difference = $secondDifference/2592000; 
    $difference = round($difference,0); 
    if ($difference>1) { $extra="s"; } 
    $difference = $difference." month".$extra." ago"; 
}else if($secondDifference > 2592000)
    {$difference=timestamp($timestamp);} 
elseif ($secondDifference >= 604800) { 
    // weeks 
    $difference = $secondDifference/604800; 
    $difference = round($difference,0); 
    if ($difference>1) { $extra="s"; } 
    $difference = $difference." week".$extra." ago"; 
} 
elseif ($secondDifference >= 86400) { 
    // days 
    $difference = $secondDifference/86400; 
    $difference = round($difference,0); 
    if ($difference>1) { $extra="s"; } 
    $difference = $difference." day".$extra." ago"; 
} 
elseif ($secondDifference >= 3600) { 
    // hours 

    $difference = $secondDifference/3600; 
    $difference = round($difference,0); 
    if ($difference>1) { $extra="s"; } 
    $difference = $difference." hour".$extra." ago"; 
} 
elseif ($secondDifference < 3600) { 
    // hours 
    // for seconds (less than minute)
    if($secondDifference<=60)
    {       
        if($secondDifference==0)
        {
            $secondDifference=1;
        }
        if ($secondDifference>1) { $extra="s"; }
        $difference = $secondDifference." second".$extra." ago"; 

    }
    else
    {

$difference = $secondDifference/60; 
        if ($difference>1) { $extra="s"; }else{$extra="";}
        $difference = round($difference,0); 
        $difference = $difference." minute".$extra." ago"; 
    }
} 

$FinalDifference = $difference; 
return $FinalDifference;
}

我不知道为什么还没有人提到碳。

https://github.com/briannesbitt/Carbon

这实际上是php dateTime的扩展(这里已经使用了)，它有:diffForHumans方法。所以你所需要做的就是:

$dt = Carbon::parse('2012-9-5 23:26:11.123789');
echo $dt->diffForHumans();

更多例子:http://carbon.nesbot.com/docs/#api-humandiff

这个解决方案的优点:

它适用于未来的日期，并将在2个月等时间内返回。 你可以使用本地化来获取其他语言，多元化也很好 如果你开始用碳来做其他事情，处理日期就会变得非常容易。

再加上另一个选择……

虽然我更喜欢在这里发布的DateTime方法，但我不喜欢它显示0年等事实。

/* 
 * Returns a string stating how long ago this happened
 */

private function timeElapsedString($ptime){
    $diff = time() - $ptime;
    $calc_times = array();
    $timeleft   = array();

    // Prepare array, depending on the output we want to get.
    $calc_times[] = array('Year',   'Years',   31557600);
    $calc_times[] = array('Month',  'Months',  2592000);
    $calc_times[] = array('Day',    'Days',    86400);
    $calc_times[] = array('Hour',   'Hours',   3600);
    $calc_times[] = array('Minute', 'Minutes', 60);
    $calc_times[] = array('Second', 'Seconds', 1);

    foreach ($calc_times AS $timedata){
        list($time_sing, $time_plur, $offset) = $timedata;

        if ($diff >= $offset){
            $left = floor($diff / $offset);
            $diff -= ($left * $offset);
            $timeleft[] = "{$left} " . ($left == 1 ? $time_sing : $time_plur);
        }
    }

    return $timeleft ? (time() > $ptime ? null : '-') . implode(' ', $timeleft) : 0;
}