Format published_date

Question

Hi,

How can I format a published_date field just like Instagram and other social media this way:

[.....] second(s)
[.....] minute(s)
[.....] hour(s)
[.....] day(s)
[.....] week(s) [if it's 1 week or 2 weeks or 3 weeks only.

and if it's more than 30 days then:

dd MMM yyyy

Kindly help..

Thanks,
Jassim

Answer 1

Hello,​

Welcome to our Microsoft Q&A platform!

Based on your description, I write a method, you can make a test.

   public string DateStringFromNow(DateTime dt)  
           {  
               TimeSpan span = DateTime.Now - dt;  
                
               if (span.TotalDays > 30)  
               {  
                     
                   return dt.ToString(" dd-MM-yyyy");   
               }  
               else  
               if (span.TotalDays > 21)  
               {  
                   return "3 weeks ago";  
               }  
     
               else  
               if (span.TotalDays > 14)  
               {  
                   return "2 weeks ago";  
               }  
               else  
               if (span.TotalDays > 7)  
               {  
                   return "1 week ago";  
               }  
               else  
               if (span.TotalDays > 1)  
               {  
                   return string.Format("{0}day ago", (int)Math.Floor(span.TotalDays));  
               }  
               else  
               if (span.TotalHours > 1)  
               {  
                   return string.Format("{0}hours ago", (int)Math.Floor(span.TotalHours));  
               }  
               else  
               if (span.TotalMinutes > 1)  
               {  
                   return string.Format("{0}minutes ago", (int)Math.Floor(span.TotalMinutes));  
               }  
               else  
               if (span.TotalSeconds >= 1)  
               {  
                   return string.Format("{0}seconds ago", (int)Math.Floor(span.TotalSeconds));  
               }  
               else  
               {  
                   return "1second ago";  
               }  
           }  
       }  

You can test it with myLabel.Text = DateStringFromNow(new DateTime(2021, 6,12, 9, 15, 30)); in Xamarin forms.

Best Regards,

Leon Lu

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