I have set up a forum system however I've noticed that the time stamps on all of the submissions is based on the server time. Is there anyway for php to calculate how old a comment is.
For example, on youtube the time is displayed like - 40 minutes ago
2 days ago
1 week ago
etc...
Can i replicate this?
I have included a few files below. One which submits the forum entries onto mysql, and the other which displays the content.
This is the add topic code -
<?php
session_start();
$uname = $_SESSION['uname'];
$host="mysql.**************.co.uk"; // Host name
$username="**********"; // Mysql username
$password="****************"; // Mysql password
$db_name="***************"; // Database name
$tbl_name="forum_question"; // Table name
// Connect to server and select database.
mysql_connect("$host", "$username", "$password")or die("cannot connect");
mysql_select_db("$db_name")or die("cannot select DB");
// get data that sent from form
$topic=$_POST['topic'];
$detail=($_POST['detail']);
$name=$_POST['username'];
$datetime= date("d/m/y h:i:s"); //create date time
$sql="INSERT INTO $tbl_name(topic, detail, name, datetime)VALUES('$topic', '$detail', '$name', '$datetime')";
$result=mysql_query($sql);
if($result){
echo "Successful<BR>";
echo "<a href=main_forum.php>View your topic</a>";
}
else {
echo "ERROR";
}
mysql_close();
?>
and this is the php to display the forum post -
<?php
session_start();
$uname = $_SESSION['uname'];
function htmlallentities($str){
$res = '';
$strlen = strlen($str);
for($i=0; $i<$strlen; $i++){
$byte = ord($str[$i]);
if($byte < 128) // 1-byte char
$res .= $str[$i];
elseif($byte < 192); // invalid utf8
elseif($byte < 224) // 2-byte char
$res .= '&#'.((63&$byte)*64 + (63&ord($str[++$i]))).';';
elseif($byte < 240) // 3-byte char
$res .= '&#'.((15&$byte)*4096 + (63&ord($str[++$i]))*64 + (63&ord($str[++$i]))).';';
elseif($byte < 248) // 4-byte char
$res .= '&#'.((15&$byte)*262144 + (63&ord($str[++$i]))*4096 + (63&ord($str[++$i]))*64 + (63&ord($str[++$i]))).';';
}
return $res;
}
$host="mysql.**********.co.uk"; // Host name
$username="**********"; // Mysql username
$password="**********"; // Mysql password
$db_name="***********"; // Database name
$tbl_name="forum_question"; // Table name
// Connect to server and select databse.
mysql_connect("$host", "$username", "$password")or die("cannot connect");
mysql_select_db("$db_name")or die("cannot select DB");
// get value of id that sent from address bar
$id=$_GET['id'];
$sql="SELECT * FROM $tbl_name WHERE id='$id'";
$result=mysql_query($sql);
$rows=mysql_fetch_array($result);
?>
<style>
t{
font-family:arial;
font-size:14px;
line-height:18px;
}
</style>
<table width="600" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#CCCCCC">
<tr>
<td><table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" bordercolor="1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#F8F7F1"><strong><h1><? echo $rows['topic']; ?></h1></strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#F8F7F1" ><t><? echo nl2br( htmlentities ($rows['detail'], ENT_QUOTES, "UTF-8")); ?></t></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#F8F7F1"><strong>By :</strong> <? echo $rows['name']; ?></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#F8F7F1"><strong>Date/time : </strong><? echo $rows['datetime']; ?></td>
</tr>
</table></td>
</tr>
</table>
<BR>
<?php
$tbl_name2="forum_answer"; // Switch to table "forum_answer"
$sql2="SELECT * FROM $tbl_name2 WHERE question_id='$id'";
$result2=mysql_query($sql2);
while($rows=mysql_fetch_array($result2)){
?>
<table width="400" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#CCCCCC">
<tr>
<td><table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<tr>
<td width="18%" bgcolor="#F8F7F1"><strong>Name</strong></td>
<td width="5%" bgcolor="#F8F7F1">:</td>
<td width="77%" bgcolor="#F8F7F1"><? echo $rows['a_name']; ?></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#F8F7F1"><strong>Answer</strong></td>
<td bgcolor="#F8F7F1">:</td>
<td bgcolor="#F8F7F1"><? echo $rows['a_answer']; ?></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#F8F7F1"><strong>Date/Time</strong></td>
<td bgcolor="#F8F7F1">:</td>
<td bgcolor="#F8F7F1"><? echo $rows['a_datetime']; ?></td>
</tr>
</table></td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<?php
}
$sql3="SELECT view FROM $tbl_name WHERE id='$id'";
$result3=mysql_query($sql3);
$rows=mysql_fetch_array($result3);
$view=$rows['view'];
// if have no counter value set counter = 1
if(empty($view)){
$view=1;
$sql4="INSERT INTO $tbl_name(view) VALUES('$view') WHERE id='$id'";
$result4=mysql_query($sql4);
}
// count more value
$addview=$view+1;
$sql5="update $tbl_name set view='$addview' WHERE id='$id'";
$result5=mysql_query($sql5);
mysql_close();
?>
<BR>
<table width="400" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#CCCCCC">
<tr>
<form name="form1" method="post" action="add_answer.php">
<td>
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<tr>
<td width="18%"><strong>Username</strong></td>
<td width="3%">:</td>
<td width="79%"><input name="a_name" type="text" id="a_name" size="45" value="<?php echo $uname; ?>" readonly></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><strong>Answer</strong></td>
<td valign="top">:</td>
<td><textarea name="a_answer" cols="45" rows="3" id="a_answer"></textarea></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td><input name="id" type="hidden" value="<? echo $id; ?>"></td>
<td><input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</form>
</tr>
</table>
Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated as I am a beginner. Thank you in advance.
What you can do is, create a column which stores integers(with 12 or 13 digits), then store the value which you get from the microtime() function in PHP when someone submits a post. So when you want to display the time, just get that value from the database, store in a variable-eg. $time_of_post- and do the following:
echo "POSTED: ".date("H:i:s",microtime()-$time_of_post)." ago.";
This will subtract the microtime when the post was submitted from the current microtime, convert it into hours:minutes:seconds and display it.