convert time stamp to time ago in php? - php

Question

I know this question has been asked several times and I found so many tutorials, blog posts about converting timestamp to ago time in php..
I have tried countless codes and nothing seems to work for me...
I either get a blank page with no errors (i have error rerposting on my php page), or I get some strange numbers in my page..
so I thought someone here could shed a light on this for me..
Basically I am saving date like so:
$date = date('Y-m-d H:i:s');
I simply save it in mysql database...
and I echo it like so:
echo $date;
so now what I need to know is how I can convert the echo $date; to something like 1 minutes ago, 10 minutes ago, 1 hour ago etc etc every time the page closes and reopens?
I did try so many functions that I found on google and noon seem to do anything!
could someone please advise on this issue?
Thanks
EDIT:
I used this code as stated in the answer but I still get the $date echo-ed exactly the same way as its stored in the database which is this format: 2014-10-06 22:54:54
$date = date('Y-m-d H:i:s');
$time1 = new DateTime($date);
$now = new DateTime();
$interval = $time1->diff($now);
if ($interval->y) $date = $interval->y . ' years';
elseif ($interval->m) $date = $interval->m . ' months';
elseif ($interval->d) $date = $interval->d . ' days';
elseif ($interval->h) $date = $interval->h . ' hours';
elseif ($interval->i) $date = $interval->i . ' minutes';
echo $date;

Answer 1

You should use the DateTime class to get the difference between 2 times, ie;
$time1 = new DateTime('2014-10-06 09:00:59');
$now = new DateTime();
$interval = $time1->diff($now,true);
and then use that difference (which is a DateInterval object, $interval) to find the smallest time difference like this;
if ($interval->y) echo $interval->y . ' years';
elseif ($interval->m) echo $interval->m . ' months';
elseif ($interval->d) echo $interval->d . ' days';
elseif ($interval->h) echo $interval->h . ' hours';
elseif ($interval->i) echo $interval->i . ' minutes';
else echo "less than 1 minute";
which should echo (at time of writing) 13 hours.
Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Check this function intval() - http://php.net/manual/en/function.intval.php
The following code should help you out
$seconds_ago = (time() - strtotime('2014-01-06 15:25:08'));
if ($seconds_ago >= 31536000) {
echo "Seen " . intval($seconds_ago / 31536000) . " years ago";
} elseif ($seconds_ago >= 2419200) {
echo "Seen " . intval($seconds_ago / 2419200) . " months ago";
} elseif ($seconds_ago >= 86400) {
echo "Seen " . intval($seconds_ago / 86400) . " days ago";
} elseif ($seconds_ago >= 3600) {
echo "Seen " . intval($seconds_ago / 3600) . " hours ago";
} elseif ($seconds_ago >= 60) {
echo "Seen " . intval($seconds_ago / 60) . " minutes ago";
} else {
echo "Seen less than a minute ago";
}