Most social networks provide a historical timestamp to read as a human-readable string - such as 1 day ago, 3 weeks ago, 1 year, 5 months, and so on. The same application applies to future events or posts. The purpose of the string is to provide a general frame of time-reference and thus negating the need for any mental acrobatics. WordPress provides a default function called human_time_diff() 
that accomplishes this from within WordPress. It's this function we've slightly modified for use in other PHP applications (outside of WP).
PHP Code
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<?php
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/*
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Retrieve the plural or single form based on the supplied amount.
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@param string $single The text that will be used if $number is 1.
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@param string $plural The text that will be used if $number is not 1.
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@param int $number The number to compare against to use either $single or $plural.
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@return string Either $single or $plural translated text.
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https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/4.7.3/src/wp-includes/l10n.php#L361
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*/
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return 1 === $number ? $single : $plural;
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}
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/*
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Determines the difference between two timestamps.
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Static Day Countdown with WordPress Shortcode or PHP
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http://www.beliefmedia.com/static-countdown
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https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/4.8/src/wp-includes/formatting.php#L3216
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*/
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function beliefmedia_human_time_diff($from, $to = '', $text = false) {
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if ($diff < 3600) {
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if ($mins <= 1)
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$mins = 1;
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/* translators: min=minute */
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}
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elseif ($diff < 86400 && $diff >= 3600) {
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if ($hours <= 1)
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$hours = 1;
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}
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elseif ($diff < 604800 && $diff >= 86400) {
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if ($days <= 1)
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$days = 1;
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}
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elseif ($diff < 30 * 86400 && $diff >= 604800) {
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if ($weeks <= 1)
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$weeks = 1;
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}
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elseif ($diff < 31536000 && $diff >= 30 * 86400) {
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if ($months <= 1)
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$months = 1;
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}
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elseif ($diff >= 31536000) {
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if ($years <= 1)
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$years = 1;
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}
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return ($to - $from > 0) ? $since : $since = ($text !== false) ? $since. ' ago' : $since;
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}
Examples
Returns: 44 years ago.
Returns: 6 months.
Considerations
- The argument of
$textdetermines if theagotext is returned. - You may find other variations of this function on our PHP Snippets page.
- See also: Static Day Countdown with WordPress Shortcode or PHP.
- See also: Display Time To Published or Scheduled Posts (WP Snippet).
- The
_nfunction is one to essentially nullify the WP translation object.
