function mdiv(dividend, divisor) {
    return [ Math.floor(dividend/divisor), dividend % divisor ];
}
// pass in milliseconds, gained by Date1.getTime() - Date2.getTime()
// if max_units is two, the result will be, for example
// 2years 12months ago, or 2hours 38minutes ago
// return formated period

function readable_period(ms, max_units=2){
    let [yy, yr] = mdiv(ms, 3.154e10);
    let [mm, mr] = mdiv(yr, 2.628e9);
    let [dd, dr] = mdiv(mr, 8.64e7);
    let [hh, hr] = mdiv(dr, 3.6e6);
    let [tt, ss] = mdiv(hr, 6e4);

    var ymdht = ['year', 'month', 'day', 'hour', 'minute'];
    let res = [];
    [yy, mm, dd, hh, tt].forEach((tis, ii)=>{
        if(res.length === max_units){return};
        if(tis !== 0){
            res.push(tis === 1 ? `${tis}${ymdht[ii]}` : `${tis}${ymdht[ii]}s`);
        }
    });
    return res.length === 0 ? '' : res.join(' ') + ' ago';
}

我还没有检查(虽然这并不难)，但我认为Stack Exchange站点使用jquery。Timeago插件来创建这些时间字符串。

这个插件使用起来很简单，而且很干净，还能自动更新。

下面是一个简单的例子(来自插件的主页):

First, load jQuery and the plugin: <script src="jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="jquery.timeago.js" type="text/javascript"></script> Now, let's attach it to your timestamps on DOM ready: jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery("abbr.timeago").timeago(); }); This will turn all abbr elements with a class of timeago and an ISO 8601 timestamp in the title: <abbr class="timeago" title="2008-07-17T09:24:17Z">July 17, 2008</abbr> into something like this: <abbr class="timeago" title="July 17, 2008">about a year ago</abbr> which yields: about a year ago. As time passes, the timestamps will automatically update.

您可能需要查看humanized_time_span: https://github.com/layam/js_humanized_time_span

它与框架无关，并且完全可定制。

只需下载/包含脚本，然后你可以这样做:

humanized_time_span("2011-05-11 12:00:00")  
   => '3 hours ago'

humanized_time_span("2011-05-11 12:00:00", "2011-05-11 16:00:00)  
   => '4 hours ago'

甚至是这样:

var custom_date_formats = {
  past: [
    { ceiling: 60, text: "less than a minute ago" },
    { ceiling: 86400, text: "$hours hours, $minutes minutes and $seconds seconds ago" },
    { ceiling: null, text: "$years years ago" }
  ],
  future: [
    { ceiling: 60, text: "in less than a minute" },
    { ceiling: 86400, text: "in $hours hours, $minutes minutes and $seconds seconds time" },
    { ceiling: null, text: "in $years years" }
  ]
}

humanized_time_span("2010/09/10 10:00:00", "2010/09/10 10:00:05", custom_date_formats) 
  => "less than a minute ago"

更多信息请阅读文档。

从现在开始，Unix时间戳参数

function timeSince(ts){
    now = new Date();
    ts = new Date(ts*1000);
    var delta = now.getTime() - ts.getTime();

    delta = delta/1000; //us to s

    var ps, pm, ph, pd, min, hou, sec, days;

    if(delta<=59){
        ps = (delta>1) ? "s": "";
        return delta+" second"+ps
    }

    if(delta>=60 && delta<=3599){
        min = Math.floor(delta/60);
        sec = delta-(min*60);
        pm = (min>1) ? "s": "";
        ps = (sec>1) ? "s": "";
        return min+" minute"+pm+" "+sec+" second"+ps;
    }

    if(delta>=3600 && delta<=86399){
        hou = Math.floor(delta/3600);
        min = Math.floor((delta-(hou*3600))/60);
        ph = (hou>1) ? "s": "";
        pm = (min>1) ? "s": "";
        return hou+" hour"+ph+" "+min+" minute"+pm;
    } 

    if(delta>=86400){
        days = Math.floor(delta/86400);
        hou =  Math.floor((delta-(days*86400))/60/60);
        pd = (days>1) ? "s": "";
        ph = (hou>1) ? "s": "";
        return days+" day"+pd+" "+hou+" hour"+ph;
    }

}

在这种情况下可能有点过头了，但如果有机会，moment.js真的很棒!

js是一个javascript datetime库，在这种情况下使用它，你需要做:

moment(yourdate).fromNow()

http://momentjs.com/docs/#/displaying/fromnow/

2018附录:Luxon是一个新的现代图书馆，可能值得一看!

2022年附录:Day.js是一个较新的库，比Luxon轻80%左右，具有类似的功能。

回答10年的老问题，帮助新人。

我们可以将这个包用于javascript时间之前

 
// Load locale-specific relative date/time formatting rules.
import en from 'javascript-time-ago/locale/en'
 
// Add locale-specific relative date/time formatting rules.
TimeAgo.addLocale(en)
 
// Create relative date/time formatter.
const timeAgo = new TimeAgo('en-US')
 
timeAgo.format(new Date())
// "just now"
 
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 60 * 1000)
// "a minute ago"
 
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 2 * 60 * 60 * 1000)
// "2 hours ago"
 
timeAgo.format(Date.now() - 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000)
// "a day ago"