Along the same lines, you could do something to the effect of

Update: After reading sulfericacid's response, I tested my algo. The issue was a typo ( popped up with use strict;), and I wasn't calling int. New code below.

#!/usr/bin/perl
# tested and verified

use strict;

my $then = time() - (86400 * 3);

my $min_s   = 60;
my $hour_s  = $min_s * 60;
my $day_s   = $hour_s * 24;
my $elapsed = time() - $then;

my $output;

my $days  = int( $elapsed / $day_s );
$elapsed -= $days * $day_s;
$output   = "$days days " if $days;

my $hours = int ( $elapsed / $hour_s );
$elapsed -= $hours * $hour_s;
$output  .= "$hours hours " if $hours;

my $mins  = int ( $elapsed / $min_s );
$elapsed -= $mins * $min_s;
$output .= "$mins minutes " if $mins;

$output .= "$elapsed seconds" if $elapsed;

# so on and so forth;
print "$output ago\n";
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I tried l2kashe's code and the test came out:

0.00146257716049383 days 4.21062361931911e-18 hours ago
[download]

I have no idea what went wrong, but I think you should go with a module on this one. Check out Time::Duration from cpan.org. It looks like it'll accomplish this for you.


"Age is nothing more than an inaccurate number bestowed upon us at birth as just another means for others to judge and classify us"

sulfericacid