X minutes ago JavaScript function not working

Question

I'm trying to dynamically update the time stamp 1 minute ago using the following JavaScript:

setInterval('relativeTime()', 1000);

function relativeTime()
{
    console.log(timeSince('2015-09-17 14:59:10'));
}


function timeSince(date) {
    if (typeof date !== 'object') {
        date = new Date(date);
    }

    var seconds = Math.floor((new Date() - date) / 1000);
    var intervalType;

    var interval = Math.floor(seconds / 31536000);
    if (interval >= 1) {
        intervalType = 'year';
    } else {
        interval = Math.floor(seconds / 2592000);
        if (interval >= 1) {
            intervalType = 'month';
        } else {
            interval = Math.floor(seconds / 86400);
            if (interval >= 1) {
                intervalType = 'day';
            } else {
                interval = Math.floor(seconds / 3600);
                if (interval >= 1) {
                    intervalType = "hour";
                } else {
                    interval = Math.floor(seconds / 60);
                    if (interval >= 1) {
                        intervalType = "minute";
                    } else {
                        interval = seconds;
                        intervalType = "second";
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

    if (interval > 1 || interval === 0) {
        intervalType += 's';
    }

    return interval + ' ' + intervalType;
};

jsFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/5qpxrta9/2/

The error that I'm getting:

Uncaught ReferenceError: relativeTime is not defined

You say it's not working.. what do you mean by that? Is there an error? — Heretic Monkey, Sep 17 '15 at 17:55
Use the developer tools in your browser. `Uncaught SyntaxError: missing ) after argument list` — Quentin, Sep 17 '15 at 17:56
@Quentin: Updated this: http://jsfiddle.net/5qpxrta9/1/ was missing a quote. Still not working. — user1012181, Sep 17 '15 at 17:58
Continue using the developer tools. You get a new error that tells you that the function you are trying to eval is not a global. And if you fix that then you get another new error which tells you that you haven't loaded jQuery. — Quentin, Sep 17 '15 at 17:59
@Quentin: How do I make the function as Global? (Sorry If I sounds stupid) — user1012181, Sep 17 '15 at 18:01
As a general rule, your code will be **much** easier to debug if you don't have 5 nested `if` statements. I'd highly recommend reading the book "Clean Code" by Robert C. Martin. If you interviewed at my company with code like this, I'd make sure you didn't get hired. Hard as that is to hear (and say), I really hope you'll take my advice on this. Good luck. — Travis, Sep 17 '15 at 18:05
@user1012181 — You tell JS Fiddle not to wrap it on an onload handler. Better yet, you stop it needing to be a global and pass `setInterval` a function instead of a string. — Quentin, Sep 17 '15 at 18:07
@Travis: Thanks for the Advice, but this code has to have multiple if-else to cover all possible cases. You might wanna check here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3177836/how-to-format-time-since-xxx-e-g-4-minutes-ago-similar-to-stack-exchange-site — user1012181, Sep 17 '15 at 18:07
Still don't need 5 nested `if`s. http://jsfiddle.net/9yh9c7xh/2/ — Travis, Sep 17 '15 at 18:54
@Travis : Agree. Sorry for the above comment. Much appreciated. — user1012181, Sep 17 '15 at 19:07

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 17 '15 at 18:06

You did not define jQuery on the fiddle, your function usage was before your function declaration, and your Date declaration was using a wrong format.

function relativeTime() {
    $('#time').text(timeSince('2015-09-17T14:59:10'));
}

setInterval(relativeTime, 1000);

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 17 '15 at 19:31

0

Check out the answer from @Travis also for much better code

http://jsfiddle.net/9yh9c7xh/2/

answered Sep 17 '15 at 19:31

user1012181

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X minutes ago JavaScript function not working

2 Answers2