Function given below returns an english representation of a past date within the last month.
function time2str($ts) { if(!ctype_digit($ts)) $ts = strtotime($ts); $diff = time() - $ts; if($diff == 0) return 'now'; elseif($diff > 0) { $day_diff = floor($diff / 86400); if($day_diff == 0) { if($diff < 60) return 'just now'; if($diff < 120) return '1 minute ago'; if($diff < 3600) return floor($diff / 60) . ' minutes ago'; if($diff < 7200) return '1 hour ago'; if($diff < 86400) return floor($diff / 3600) . ' hours ago'; } if($day_diff == 1) return 'Yesterday'; if($day_diff < 7) return $day_diff . ' days ago'; if($day_diff < 31) return ceil($day_diff / 7) . ' weeks ago'; if($day_diff < 60) return 'last month'; return date('F Y', $ts); } else { $diff = abs($diff); $day_diff = floor($diff / 86400); if($day_diff == 0) { if($diff < 120) return 'in a minute'; if($diff < 3600) return 'in ' . floor($diff / 60) . ' minutes'; if($diff < 7200) return 'in an hour'; if($diff < 86400) return 'in ' . floor($diff / 3600) . ' hours'; } if($day_diff == 1) return 'Tomorrow'; if($day_diff < 4) return date('l', $ts); if($day_diff < 7 + (7 - date('w'))) return 'next week'; if(ceil($day_diff / 7) < 4) return 'in ' . ceil($day_diff / 7) . ' weeks'; if(date('n', $ts) == date('n') + 1) return 'next month'; return date('F Y', $ts); } }