Display humanized time output

Question

I am trying to display following message in one of my application to show the waiting time

2 hours, 3 mins and 4 s
1 hour and 2 s

As you can see there can be many variations and I am struggling to get this done. The following code works well is the given number of secs gives out non-zero hr, min and sec, but this is getting completed if I have to handle the case where only I have hours and secs to display and no minutes to display.

Also not sure where to add those string 'and' and the comma.

I believe there should be already a solution for this which I may not know.

public class HumanizedWaitDisplay {

public static void main(String[] args) {
    int noOfSecToWait = 60*60*2 + 30;
    System.out.println("Waiting for " + getHumanizedTime(noOfSecToWait));
}

private static String getHumanizedTime(int seconds) {
    String out ="";
    int hr = seconds/(60*60);
    seconds = seconds%(60*60);
    int min = seconds/(60);
    seconds = seconds%(60);

    if(hr>0) {
        out +=  hr + " hour" +(hr == 1 ? " ":"s ");
    }
    if(min > 0){
        out +=  min + " min" +(min == 1 ? " ":"s ");
    }
    if(seconds > 0){
        out +=  seconds + " s";
    }
    return out;
}
}

Let me know if you have come across such thing.

Your code seems to work fine. What are the problems? On which inputs? — Maroun, Sep 30 '13 at 10:56
Have a look at this [answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/3860287/2024761)! — Rahul, Sep 30 '13 at 10:59
@Maroun, I am not able to figure the placements of 'and' and commas. If there are only hour's to display and min and sec are zero... there are many cases. Hope you get the picture.. — mtk, Sep 30 '13 at 11:03
@R.J perfect answer at link you provided. Thanks. Had tried to search SO, but was not clear of the keyword. — mtk, Sep 30 '13 at 11:07

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

0

This will return results like you posted

2 hours, 3 mins and 4 s

1 hour and 2 s

Note that the comma ',' is only included when mins are not 0, so we must place it in the if test for min > 0. The "and" shows up only when the seconds are not 0, so we place that in the if test for seconds > 0.

    if(hr > 0) {
        out += hr + " hour" +(hr == 1 ? "":"s");
    }       
    if(min > 0){
        out += ", " + min + " min" +(min == 1 ? "":"s");
    }
    if(seconds > 0){
        out += " and " + seconds + " s";
    }
    return out;

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

1
1

answered Sep 30 '13 at 11:00

Ron

1,450
15
27

This will give a trailing ',' if min and secs are 0. – mtk Sep 30 '13 at 11:05
Hey.. it'll now give a leading ',' if hour is zero. I hope you get it's not that simple :) – mtk Sep 30 '13 at 11:08

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 22 '13 at 22:01

You can use the java date and time api. Brief example (using the method signature you provided at question body) :

static DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yy"); //specifiy the 
//representation pattern. This is for example. You can construct it more accurate:
//display the hours, mins, secs, etc. Also you can specify your own delimiters. 
//See more at docs below

static { //upd: set the proper timezone
    dateFormat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
}

private static String getHumanizedTime(int seconds) {
    long timeInMillis = seconds * 1000; //Date object is designed for millis
    Date date = new Date(timeInMillis);
    return dateFormat.format(date);
}

Read more at javadocs : http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Date.html http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/text/DateFormat.html

Update : if you want the output to be something like "11 hours, 15 minutes and 34 seconds", try that :

static DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("HH 'hours,' mm 'minutes and' ss 'seconds'");

Deepak · Answer 3 · 2013-09-30T12:12:55.767

Try this, this code could solve your problem

private static String getHumanizedTime(int seconds) {
String out ="";
int hr = seconds/(60*60);
seconds = seconds%(60*60);
int min = seconds/(60);
seconds = seconds%(60);

boolean htrue = false;
boolean mtrue = false;
if(hr>0) {
    out +=  hr + " hour" +(hr == 1 ? " ":"s ");
    htrue = true;
}
if(min > 0){
    if(htrue && seconds>0)
        out += ",";
    else if(seconds==0)
        out += "and";

    mtrue = true;
    out +=  min + " min" +(min == 1 ? " ":"s ");

}
if(seconds > 0){
    if(htrue || mtrue)
        out += "and ";
    out +=  seconds + " s";
}
return out;
}

Display humanized time output

3 Answers3