How to calculate elapsed time from now with Joda-Time?

Question

I need to calculate the time elapsed from one specific date till now and display it with the same format as StackOverflow questions, i.e.:

15s ago 2min ago 2hours ago 2days ago 25th Dec 08 

Do you know how to achieve it with the Java Joda-Time library? Is there a helper method out there that already implements it, or should I write the algorithm myself?

Answer 1

To calculate the elapsed time with JodaTime, use Period. To format the elapsed time in the desired human representation, use PeriodFormatter which you can build by PeriodFormatterBuilder.

Here's a kickoff example:

DateTime myBirthDate = new DateTime(1978, 3, 26, 12, 35, 0, 0); DateTime now = new DateTime(); Period period = new Period(myBirthDate, now);  PeriodFormatter formatter = new PeriodFormatterBuilder()     .appendSeconds().appendSuffix(" seconds ago\n")     .appendMinutes().appendSuffix(" minutes ago\n")     .appendHours().appendSuffix(" hours ago\n")     .appendDays().appendSuffix(" days ago\n")     .appendWeeks().appendSuffix(" weeks ago\n")     .appendMonths().appendSuffix(" months ago\n")     .appendYears().appendSuffix(" years ago\n")     .printZeroNever()     .toFormatter();  String elapsed = formatter.print(period); System.out.println(elapsed); 

This prints by now

 3 seconds ago 51 minutes ago 7 hours ago 6 days ago 10 months ago 31 years ago 

^{_{(Cough, old, cough)}} You see that I've taken months and years into account as well and configured it to omit the values when those are zero.