Below is actually the most accurate way you can do it, since the definition of "1 Month" changes depending on which month it is, and non of the other answers take this into account! If you want more information about the issue which is not built into the framework, you can read this post: A Real Timespan Object With .Years & .Months (however, reading that post isn't necessary to understand and use the function below, it works 100%, without the inherent inaccuracies of the approximation others love to use - and feel free to replace the .ReverseIt function with the built-in .Reverse function you may have on your framework (it's just here for completeness).
Please note that you can get any number of dates/times accuracy, seconds & minutes, or seconds, minutes and days, anywhere up to years (which would contain 6 parts/segments). If you specify top two and it's over a year old, it will return "1 year and 3 months ago" and won't return the rest because you've requested two segments. if it's only a few hours old, then it will only return "2 hours and 1 minute ago". Of course, same rules apply if you specify 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 segmets (maxes out at 6 because seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years only make 6 types). It will also correct grammer issues like "minutes" vs "minute" depending on if it's 1 minute or more, same for all types, and the "string" generated will always be grammatically correct.
Here are some examples for use:
bAllowSegments identifies how many segments to show... ie: if 3, then return string would be (as an example)... "3 years, 2 months and 13 days" (won't include hours, minutes and seconds as the top 3 time categories are returned), if however, the date was a newer date, such as something a few days ago, specifying the same segments (3) will return "4 days, 1 hour and 13 minutes ago" instead, so it takes everything into account!
if bAllowSegments is 2 it would return "3 years and 2 months" and if 6 (maximum value) would return "3 years, 2 months, 13 days, 13 hours, 29 minutes and 9 seconds", but, be reminded that it will NEVER RETURN something like this "0 years, 0 months, 0 days, 3 hours, 2 minutes and 13 seconds ago" as it understands there is no date data in the top 3 segments and ignores them, even if you specify 6 segments, so don't worry :). Of course, if there is a segment with 0 in it, it will take that into account when forming the string, and will display as "3 days and 4 seconds ago" and ignoring the "0 hours" part! Enjoy and please comment if you like.
Public Function RealTimeUntilNow(ByVal dt As DateTime, Optional ByVal bAllowSegments As Byte = 2) As String
' bAllowSegments identifies how many segments to show... ie: if 3, then return string would be (as an example)...
' "3 years, 2 months and 13 days" the top 3 time categories are returned, if bAllowSegments is 2 it would return
' "3 years and 2 months" and if 6 (maximum value) would return "3 years, 2 months, 13 days, 13 hours, 29 minutes and 9 seconds"
Dim rYears, rMonths, rDays, rHours, rMinutes, rSeconds As Int16
Dim dtNow = DateTime.Now
Dim daysInBaseMonth = Date.DaysInMonth(dt.Year, dt.Month)
rYears = dtNow.Year - dt.Year
rMonths = dtNow.Month - dt.Month
If rMonths < 0 Then rMonths += 12 : rYears -= 1 ' add 1 year to months, and remove 1 year from years.
rDays = dtNow.Day - dt.Day
If rDays < 0 Then rDays += daysInBaseMonth : rMonths -= 1
rHours = dtNow.Hour - dt.Hour
If rHours < 0 Then rHours += 24 : rDays -= 1
rMinutes = dtNow.Minute - dt.Minute
If rMinutes < 0 Then rMinutes += 60 : rHours -= 1
rSeconds = dtNow.Second - dt.Second
If rSeconds < 0 Then rSeconds += 60 : rMinutes -= 1
' this is the display functionality
Dim sb As StringBuilder = New StringBuilder()
Dim iSegmentsAdded As Int16 = 0
If rYears > 0 Then sb.Append(rYears) : sb.Append(" year" & If(rYears <> 1, "s", "") & ", ") : iSegmentsAdded += 1
If bAllowSegments = iSegmentsAdded Then GoTo parseAndReturn
If rMonths > 0 Then sb.AppendFormat(rMonths) : sb.Append(" month" & If(rMonths <> 1, "s", "") & ", ") : iSegmentsAdded += 1
If bAllowSegments = iSegmentsAdded Then GoTo parseAndReturn
If rDays > 0 Then sb.Append(rDays) : sb.Append(" day" & If(rDays <> 1, "s", "") & ", ") : iSegmentsAdded += 1
If bAllowSegments = iSegmentsAdded Then GoTo parseAndReturn
If rHours > 0 Then sb.Append(rHours) : sb.Append(" hour" & If(rHours <> 1, "s", "") & ", ") : iSegmentsAdded += 1
If bAllowSegments = iSegmentsAdded Then GoTo parseAndReturn
If rMinutes > 0 Then sb.Append(rMinutes) : sb.Append(" minute" & If(rMinutes <> 1, "s", "") & ", ") : iSegmentsAdded += 1
If bAllowSegments = iSegmentsAdded Then GoTo parseAndReturn
If rSeconds > 0 Then sb.Append(rSeconds) : sb.Append(" second" & If(rSeconds <> 1, "s", "") & "") : iSegmentsAdded += 1
parseAndReturn:
' if the string is entirely empty, that means it was just posted so its less than a second ago, and an empty string getting passed will cause an error
' so we construct our own meaningful string which will still fit into the "Posted * ago " syntax...
If sb.ToString = "" Then sb.Append("less than 1 second")
Return ReplaceLast(sb.ToString.TrimEnd(" ", ",").ToString, ",", " and")
End Function
Of course, you will need a "ReplaceLast" function, which takes a source string, and an argument specifying what needs to be replaced, and another arg specifying what you want to replace it with, and it only replaces the last occurance of that string... i've included my one if you don't have one or dont want to implement it, so here it is, it will work "as is" with no modification needed. I know the reverseit function is no longer needed (exists in .net) but the ReplaceLast and the ReverseIt func are carried over from the pre-.net days, so please excuse how dated it may look (still works 100% tho, been using em for over ten years, can guarante they are bug free)... :). cheers.
<Extension()> _
Public Function ReplaceLast(ByVal sReplacable As String, ByVal sReplaceWhat As String, ByVal sReplaceWith As String) As String
' let empty string arguments run, incase we dont know if we are sending and empty string or not.
sReplacable = sReplacable.ReverseIt
sReplacable = Replace(sReplacable, sReplaceWhat.ReverseIt, sReplaceWith.ReverseIt, , 1) ' only does first item on reversed version!
Return sReplacable.ReverseIt.ToString
End Function
<Extension()> _
Public Function ReverseIt(ByVal strS As String, Optional ByVal n As Integer = -1) As String
Dim strTempX As String = "", intI As Integer
If n > strS.Length Or n = -1 Then n = strS.Length
For intI = n To 1 Step -1
strTempX = strTempX + Mid(strS, intI, 1)
Next intI
ReverseIt = strTempX + Right(strS, Len(strS) - n)
End Function
