how to get time difference in flutter? - flutter

Question

I want to get time difference like -
'2h 28mins ago', 'a few seconds ago', 'a few mins ago','1 min ago', '6h ago','a day ago','a week ago', 'a few months ago'
I get event occured time as DateTime object. I can get current time with DateTime.now() I want to calculate the difference between this 2 times. I'm currently doing this using many lines of if else statements like this...
if (now.year > date.year) {
//months ago
if ((12 - date.month) + now.month > 11) {
return "a year ago";
} else if ((12 - date.month) + now.month > 1) {
return "${(12 - date.month) + now.month} months ago";
} else if ((12 - date.month) + now.month == 1) {
if ((getDateCountForMonth(date.month) - date.day) + now.day > 13) {
return "a few weeks ago";
}
...}}
Is there a better and simple way to do this? I want to output like this - '2h 28mins ago', 'a few seconds ago', 'a few mins ago','1 min ago', '6h ago','a day ago','a week ago', 'a few months ago'

Answer 1

I created a function to calculate the time difference for a project in the past, you can make use of this function. Just call it by passing the DateTime string which you want to compare with the current timing:
String getComparedTime(String dateTime) {
Duration difference = DateTime.now().difference(DateTime.parse(dateTime));
final List prefix = [
"just now",
"second(s) ago",
"minute(s) ago",
"hour(s) ago",
"day(s) ago",
"month(s) ago",
"year(s) ago"
];
if (difference.inDays == 0) {
if (difference.inMinutes == 0) {
if (difference.inSeconds < 20) {
return (prefix[0]);
} else {
return ("${difference.inSeconds} ${prefix[1]}");
}
} else {
if (difference.inMinutes > 59) {
return ("${(difference.inMinutes / 60).floor()} ${prefix[3]}");
} else {
return ("${difference.inMinutes} ${prefix[2]}");
}
}
} else {
if (difference.inDays > 30) {
if (((difference.inDays) / 30).floor() > 12) {
return ("${((difference.inDays / 30) / 12).floor()} ${prefix[6]}");
} else {
return ("${(difference.inDays / 30).floor()} ${prefix[5]}");
}
} else {
return ("${difference.inDays} ${prefix[4]}");
}
}
}

Answer 2

Lets say the selected date is
DateTime date = DateTime(2022, 9, 7, 17, 30);
you can calculate the difference by calling difference on DateTime format like this:
date.difference(DateTime.now());
and you can get this difference in many format like in days, inHours, in inMinutes ,... :
var days = date.difference(DateTime.now()).inDays;
and with this the calculation may get easier.
if (days > 365) {
//years ago
} else if (days < 365 && days > 31) {
// month ago
} else {
...
}

Answer 3

String timeAgo({bigDate, smallDate, bool numericDates = false}) {
final difference = bigDate.difference(smallDate);
if ((difference.inDays / 7).floor() >= 1) {
return (numericDates) ? '1 week ago' : 'Last week';
} else if (difference.inDays >= 2) {
return '${difference.inDays} days ago';
} else if (difference.inDays >= 1) {
return (numericDates) ? '1 day ago' : 'Yesterday';
} else if (difference.inHours >= 2) {
return '${difference.inHours} hours ago';
} else if (difference.inHours >= 1) {
return (numericDates) ? '1 hour ago' : 'An hour ago';
} else if (difference.inMinutes >= 2) {
return '${difference.inMinutes} minutes ago';
} else if (difference.inMinutes >= 1) {
return (numericDates) ? '1 minute ago' : 'A minute ago';
} else if (difference.inSeconds >= 3) {
return '${difference.inSeconds} seconds ago';
} else {
return 'Just now';
}
}
/// and use like
String date = timeAgo(smallDate: DateTime(2022, 12, 14, 10, 00), bigDate: DateTime(2022, 12, 14, 12, 00),);
print('difference between to dates: $date');