Replace WordPress post date with hours and days

Today I found a really cool and simple way to change your WordPress post archive to display how long ago the post was made as opposed to the date. It gives your visitors a very fast indication that the post is new so they don’t have to think twice about today’s date.

So, basically instead of the post saying “Posted 10/10/16” – it will say, “Posted 2 hours ago”, or “Posted 2 Days ago” etc.

Firstly, add this code to your functions.php, if you are using a child WordPress theme, add it to your parent theme functions.php.

function themeblvd_time_ago() {

global $post;

$date = get_post_time('G', true, $post);

/**
* Where you see 'themeblvd' below, you'd
* want to replace those with whatever term
* you're using in your theme to provide
* support for localization.
*/

// Array of time period chunks
$chunks = array(
array( 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 , __( 'year', 'themeblvd' ), __( 'years', 'themeblvd' ) ),
array( 60 * 60 * 24 * 30 , __( 'month', 'themeblvd' ), __( 'months', 'themeblvd' ) ),
array( 60 * 60 * 24 * 7, __( 'week', 'themeblvd' ), __( 'weeks', 'themeblvd' ) ),
array( 60 * 60 * 24 , __( 'day', 'themeblvd' ), __( 'days', 'themeblvd' ) ),
array( 60 * 60 , __( 'hour', 'themeblvd' ), __( 'hours', 'themeblvd' ) ),
array( 60 , __( 'minute', 'themeblvd' ), __( 'minutes', 'themeblvd' ) ),
array( 1, __( 'second', 'themeblvd' ), __( 'seconds', 'themeblvd' ) )
);

if ( !is_numeric( $date ) ) {
$time_chunks = explode( ':', str_replace( ' ', ':', $date ) );
$date_chunks = explode( '-', str_replace( ' ', '-', $date ) );
$date = gmmktime( (int)$time_chunks[1], (int)$time_chunks[2], (int)$time_chunks[3], (int)$date_chunks[1], (int)$date_chunks[2], (int)$date_chunks[0] );
}

$current_time = current_time( 'mysql', $gmt = 0 );
$newer_date = strtotime( $current_time );

// Difference in seconds
$since = $newer_date - $date;

// Something went wrong with date calculation and we ended up with a negative date.
if ( 0 > $since )
return __( 'sometime', 'themeblvd' );

/**
* We only want to output one chunks of time here, eg:
* x years
* xx months
* so there's only one bit of calculation below:
*/

//Step one: the first chunk
for ( $i = 0, $j = count($chunks); $i < $j; $i++) {
$seconds = $chunks[$i][0];

// Finding the biggest chunk (if the chunk fits, break)
if ( ( $count = floor($since / $seconds) ) != 0 )
break;
}

// Set output var
$output = ( 1 == $count ) ? '1 '. $chunks[$i][1] : $count . ' ' . $chunks[$i][2];

if ( !(int)trim($output) ){
$output = '0 ' . __( 'seconds', 'themeblvd' );
}

$output .= __(' ago', 'themeblvd');

return $output;}

// Filter our themeblvd_time_ago() function into WP's the_time() function
add_filter('the_time', 'themeblvd_time_ago');

Then, in your Theme’s template, eg. Archive.php or Single.php, add this

<?php the_time();?>

And it’s that easy, without the need of a plugin, hope that helps you!